You've Got To Go There To Come Back
by lovethiscity
Summary: Set after X3. Pyro's first person account of being found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust and struggles with the challenges of living there.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepallday" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame but around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.   
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Author's Note:** This is my honest-to-goodness, first ever, never-before-done fic. I have absolutely never written a fic before. This isn't a plea of "Please be nice to me!" It's more a warning of, "Oh my God, this is going to suck." I'm more of a graphics kind of a person. But I had this plot idea, and I just had to try it out, and I'm hoping against hope that it works. So I'd really appreciate it if you guys gave it a try and let me know how it goes, and if you'd be interested in reading more. Feedback is the only thing you get in return for writing, is it not?

I am posting to because someone had expressed interest in seeing this story up there, but I normally post to Livejournal and would very much appreciate any comments left there, too. If reading from Livejournal is easier for you, look for the username **lovethiscity**. Catch up on updates to the story whichever way is easier for you.

**Chapter 1: "You don't know who it is?"**

As though nothing had happened the night before, the sun shone cheerily down on San Francisco. The weather was no indicator of the destruction that had occurred on Alcatraz Island, and Warren Worthington was closer to the puffy clouds above than any other human that afternoon. Warm thermals lifted him higher and Warren felt lighter than he ever had since the day he first took flight years ago.

Fearing that more of Magneto's mutants would hunt down his father, Warren had flown him away from the fight on Alcatraz and didn't even dare taking him back to their home. Surely they knew where he lived. Warren couldn't risk his father being anywhere near the fight, and had to leave them behind as he took him to his aunt's home several miles away. Nobody got much sleep that night – his aunt, surprised by the sudden visit and even more so by the shaken up look on her brother's face, and the two Warrens, who spent the night talking. As soon as it was morning, the younger Warren phoned the mansion to tell Storm, the newly appointed headmaster, that he would be soon returning. He wanted a place to belong, to make a difference, to actually do something instead of moping and hiding his wings. Now he had finally reconciled with his father, and for the first time, nothing was weighing down his wings as he flew past the wreckage on Alcatraz.

A "Danger" sign on the ground miles below made Warren grow strangely nostalgic. When he was younger, as the kids in his classes moved up grades, more and more of them began showing up in glasses. Warren's eyes were of the contrary – they sharpened like a hawk's. Nothing escaped his eyes when he was in the air. Nothing – certainly not that boy on the ground who was still moving.

Warren swooped down, to see who it was. Upon closer look he didn't recognize him, but he couldn't have been older than he was. He was light brown haired and burned in the face, maybe in other places too. His clothes were definitely singed. The boy was stirring, but not awake. Warren didn't even think twice about whether or not he should help him, and bent down to pick him up. He turned around to take flight again, and his usually graceful movements were suddenly interrupted by his wing swinging around to knock over some pieces of metal. Several pieces piled on top of each other fell to the ground, one of them cutting him on the shoulder on the way. He groaned, blaming it on his lack of sleep and wondered when he would get used to not having those wings in a harness.

Although the cut was deep and began to bleed immediately onto his front and on the boy in his arms, it wasn't long before Warren was in the air and the cut was healing itself. While searching for one of his father's nearby offices, Warren noticed that the cut was almost nearly gone. _Nice_, he thought. This had happened on several other occasions before. _Guess this is another added bonus to the wings? _Warren took a dive, and placed the boy on the roof of the office building while he went down the stairs to find a phone.

"Storm? It's me – it's Warren."

"Hi, hon. I thought you were on your way. Is there are problem?" she answered tiredly.

"No, not exactly. It's just, yeah, I was on my way. But I saw someone at Alcatraz, and he's hurt but alive. And I guess he was there last night so I'm guessing he's a mutant, too. I just wanted to tell you I'm bringing someone else with me."

"You don't know who it is?"

"Well, no, I don't recognize him but I thought maybe he was one of the students and couldn't be found last night. Is everyone okay? Are you missing anyone?" Warren grew suddenly concerned. Maybe some of them hadn't made it.

"We're… Professor – we're okay for the most part," Storm managed to get out. "All the kids have returned."

"He has light brown hair, looks like my age, shorter than me…" Warren answered.

Storm hesitated, thinking that the description sounded like it could be Bobby and felt a twinge of paranoia for her students until she remembered that he was safe and in the school. "No, he doesn't sound like he's one of…" she trailed off.

"Storm? Are you there?" Warren asked.

There was some hesitation, and then, "Yes, bring him with you."

Warren, thankful for the empty room, opened a window and chose to fly back to the roof instead of taking the stairs. The boy was still there. He looked the same, only… what was different? Taking him in his arms again Warren realized that the burns were gone. Could he have the same healing power that he did?

Back in New York, Warren landed gracefully as always on the lawn of Xavier's school. As he was using both his arms to carry the boy, he turned around and used a wing to thump on the front door. There were some running feet, and Rogue threw the door open. She smiled at Warren so briefly it was barely there, and it was replaced with widened eyes and a gasp as she recoiled: "_Pyro._"


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 2: "Come on, this tie is gettin' on my last nerve."**

Something was different. Ugh. I had a dull headache. That wasn't it. That was there before. I was definitely feeling good enough to sit up though, and where I sat up on was a bed. Okay, that was definitely new. I must've been out for a long time – why was I in a bed? I knew this much: I was at Alcatraz fighting alongside Magneto, and then fighting Bobby, the "Iceman." Then he'd knocked me out, but not completely. That kid never had much in him. It wasn't the blow to the head that put me out of commission, it was the sudden startling of the hit that caused me to lose focus on my powers and burn myself. Damn it. I hadn't done that in so long, probably since I first learned that I had any powers at all. It turns out a fire I can't control is a fire that can burn me. Damn that Bobby.

And then what happened? My face hurt so much. I'd never, ever felt the sensation of real burning before, and it had torn apart my face. Then I'd blacked out, and now I was in some place I didn't recognize. I was going to be disfigured forever. I couldn't bear it, I held my face in my hands as if to hide the ugly burns or to just hide away the world, or – that's it. My face. That's what was different. It didn't even hurt anymore.

I stood up – no, bolted – and looked around the room. There was a small bathroom attached to the bedroom, and I ran inside. The mirror. I was… I looked like me. What happened to all the burns? They were gone! The places they were weren't even hurting anymore. I couldn't have been knocked out long enough for them to heal, could I – no, those probably wouldn't have ever healed at all, under normal circumstances. I backed out of the bathroom, and opened the bedroom door.

Xavier's school. So that's where I was. As soon as I opened the door it all came back in a wave. The hallway was instantly recognizable, with its wooden décor and the small doors along the entire hall. I can't even begin to imagine how I got here, or why I'm not… restrained, I guess. I was working with Magneto. Should I leave?

No, I decided. I needed some answers first. I wandered down the hall slowly, not sure which way to go first. Maybe I should try Xavier's office. At least there I'd probably get a straight answer about what I was doing here. I turned around and headed the opposite direction but I didn't even make it to the office before I bumped right into someone I didn't at all care to see.

"Look who's up and at 'em," said a gruff voice. One could practically hear the hairs growing on that man as he spoke. "We've got some words to have with you," Wolverine growled, and grabbed my upper arm and dragged me to the office.

"Hey!" I started to say defensively, and clenched a fist with my free hand. The wrist lighter was gone. I frantically searched my pockets. The old Zippo, that was gone, too. There was a sense of panic when I realized I couldn't defend myself. They were still there when I was about to pass out on Alcatraz! They must have taken them from me when they brought me here. Whoever "they" were.

"Hello, John," Storm said in a weary voice as Wolverine practically threw me into the room. I also saw Hank McCoy. I said nothing. Realizing I had no lighter made me feel I was no longer in a position to be too antagonistic.

I finally found my voice, and said, "What's going on? Why am I here?"

"Warren found you on Alcatraz, and brought you here because you were hurt and unconscious. You seem to have already made a recovery, however, so we moved you out of our infirmary and were waiting for you to wake up," she answered.

"Who's… never mind," I said quietly. I sighed, and looked around the office. So they had found me and brought me back. To nurse me back to health? To turn me in to the authorities? What was it? I sighed again as I realized I didn't have much to say for my own case.

Then, I remembered that they hadn't locked me up. "You can't stop me from leaving, though," I said as defiantly as I could. "I don't have to say thanks for anything, either."

I backed away from Storm and Wolverine towards the door, and McCoy finally spoke. "In fact, you are most mistaken, young John. We have informed the attorney general of your presence here and have presented your case."

Case? What case? I decided to ask. "Case? What case?"

"I had originally argued that we take a different course of action, but Ororo here, Miss Munroe to you, insisted that we allow you a chance for rehabilitation from past crimes," McCoy answered. This did not help clarify the situation much.

I guess Storm sensed my confusion, because she said, "John, you were a student of mine. I was sorry to see you go, but we're not condemning people." Wolverine scoffed. Storm gave him a look, and continued. "Your leaving us was your choice, but maybe you'd like to correct that."

Before she could continue, I cut her off, and said, "What? You said it yourself. It was my choice. I didn't choose to stay here, remember? Why would I want to correct myself? I'm… I'm leaving. Again." I backed away some more.

"On the contrary," McCoy said. "We are obligated to respond to criminal behavior. Miss Munroe wished as lenient a punishment as possible, so we have arranged for a plea bargain."

"A what? You're turning me in?" I said, now more confused than ever.

"We spoke to the Department of Mutant Affairs," Storm said, softening a little bit. "We tried to explain your situation, that your background involved unresolved discrimination issues with your parents, and how you tried to fill that parental role with Magneto." I cringed, but all of that is in my files at the school. Xavier once explained how certain things aren't confidential to the school exclusively.

"We're using as much as we can to make a fair case for you, John. We just want a second chance for all of our students," Storm continued before I could ask why they were doing this. I heaved another sigh as I remembered an old poster in a classroom of Storm's, something about "the joys of teaching" and "molding young minds." She could be telling me the truth.

"What am I supposed to do?" I said bitterly. Here I was again. The rock and the hard place.

Two mornings later I was almost glad to be getting out of the mansion and to the courthouse, as it had been sufficiently awkward stepping around all the kids currently living there. I was given some clothes and told to make myself presentable for the day, and left with Hank McCoy, Storm, and Wolverine. There was a woman in a dress suit in the lobby waiting for us, who Storm said was my lawyer.

The woman extended her hand and said, "Hi, I'm Anna McDaniel. You can just call me Anna." She was friendly enough, but she got right to the point. "Just remember, we are addressing the fire at the Worthington clinic resulting in some fatalities and injuries, and assistance in the escape of several captured mutants. Don't bring up any crimes from the past, and don't say anything when not spoken to, all right? We're going to do our best. They're going to ask you how you plead, and say 'guilty.' That's going to be all you have to say, all right?"

I nodded, since she was brisk enough that I didn't have to say much else. Guilty. I don't care that I did what I did – it was such an ugly word.

The entire courthouse was a blur. I'd never been in one before. I'd never even had to serve jury duty, since I wasn't even a citizen of America. I barely heard some of the things the judge said to me. I probably should have listened harder, since the judge and lawyer were actually talking about me and the things I'd done, but it was all so dizzying. I know what I did. And I don't feel too guilty for a lot of the things I did. But sitting in that room made me feel like a hundred pairs of eyes were looking at me calling me guilty. I guess because they were. After such a long period of doing whatever I pleased, for the first time in years, I felt ashamed sitting in that court room.

The next time that I was spoken to after I plead myself guilty, that ugly word, was when the judge presented me with something unexpected. "You must understand that we tend not to take into account personal issues or feelings with the law. However, your case is a different one. Not everyone today is discriminated against as harshly as mutants. The woman Raven Darkholme has been extremely helpful in locating the criminal Magneto in the past few weeks. However, as of late he has of course slipped away. We can offer you a choice, John Allerdyce. Raven Darkholme has informed us that you will know better than she at this time where he can be found. If you choose to aid the authorities in his capture, you will serve house arrest instead of prison time."

House arrest? But I didn't have a house. "I… she's right," I said out loud without even thinking. Then I cursed myself for giving anything away before I made a decision. But what kind of decision was that? House arrest or prison time? It sounded like an easy choice, but it meant betraying Magneto. He was the only one that gave me a home ever since before my parents didn't think I deserved one with them anymore. Could I justify betraying him?

"Mr. Allerdyce?" The judge was pressing me.

"Can I think about this?" I said, wishing that I hadn't said it so harshly in a court room.

So Raven Darkholme had told them that I knew where Magneto was. Raven… I see Mystique in my head. We had never been the closest of friends, but I worked with her long enough to feel that she was something of a friend. Something like that. She was proud of being a mutant, I remembered. She had all kinds of dignity and it was taken away when she risked her life for Magneto. I remembered seeing her and thinking the most trivial thing, "She has black hair." And Magneto had taken away more of her dignity when he shunned her and walked away. I couldn't even say anything. He was all I had. He cared for her, didn't he? I thought he cared for me too. He would have left me too. He would have left me.

That didn't change the fact that he didn't care for me, did it? Second chances, Storm had said. Would he have given me one?

"No." It was as simple as that.

"No, what, Mr. Allerdyce?" the judge asked.

"I mean…" I hadn't meant to say it out loud. "I'm sorry. I mean… I'll help." I told them two addresses that Magneto was likely to be found, and felt like I was saving my own skin. I couldn't say them without hanging my head.

"Thank you, Mr. Allerdyce, for your cooperation. You will not be serving prison time. You will be rehabilitated under the guardianship of the staff of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where you are to serve five years of house arrest. You will be eligible for parole after three. Like most prisoners of house arrest, you will be given a sensor to wear for the entire duration. This will not be removable and will let the appropriate authorities know if you move away from the campus grounds. Regarding your mutation, since it is unreasonable to keep all sources of fire away from you in a household, you will be permitted to use your powers at will. Any criminal action at all, however small, especially involving use of mutant powers, is enough to send you to prison." The judge finished and banged her gavel, and people began to stand up, but I remained seated.

That's it? I vaguely realized that the fire I caused in the Worthington clinic had killed people. That made me a murderer. They were letting me go without prison. My mind was suddenly going all over the place after feeling so dull during the actual court session. I tugged at my shirt collar, not used to wearing a tie, and looked across the room. Hank McCoy gave me a weak, brief smile and I knew that it must have been partly due to his connections with the Department of Mutant Affairs.

For the second time since I arrived back in New York, I let my head fall into my hands and stayed like that until Wolverine took my shoulder again, more gently this time, and looked at me. "People like us, we don't get too many second chances. Don't blow it." I wondered if he wanted to remind me that Storm was putting a lot on the line for me, but he didn't. Instead, he just said, "Come on, this tie's gettin' on my last nerve." He clenched a fist like he always does before those claws come slicing out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 3: "It's time for dinner."**

Five long years. Five long years. Five long… the phrase keeps banging around in my head like it's trying to get out. But it's trapped in there, just as I'm trapped in the school. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Just how gifted was I when I was so trapped and couldn't get myself out of it?

No, trapped was the wrong word. Trapped implied that I had been wrongfully captured, that I had to try to get out, but that wasn't the case. There's nothing like prison to give you time to think about what you've done and what you wish you had done. I was curled up on the bed – my bed, now – in one of the school's available rooms, facing the wall. I shifted myself around and faced the other way, which gave me a view out the window. It was sunny outside. This hardly was a prison, was it? It was home to so many people, and I was… trespassing on it.

I suddenly swung myself up to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and let out a frustrated groan. Where was I, then? Prison? Or home? Should I be angry at being confined here, or grateful I wasn't actually in a jail cell? I hated Storm for allowing me back inside this place. I hated McCoy, the appropriately named Beast, for taking me to the attorney general. I hated everyone in charge, and I hated that Warren for finding me in the first place. I _hated_ them but these people had all made it possible for me to not be sitting in a cold, hard jail. I slammed my fist on the bedpost. Whoever first thought of the concept of house arrest probably ended up confusing a whole hell of a lot of people.

I finally stood up and started to pace around in the small room. It was a room generally given to first years in the school; I'd had one of them myself, and here I was again. It was a different room, of course, but it looked the same as my old room did when I first moved in, because of how bare it was. There was the bed, a wardrobe, and a desk. That, and the bathroom on one side of the wardrobe. The walls were all bare, of course. I wondered if I should mark a tally for each day I was a prisoner.

A prisoner. I stopped pacing. I just stopped, and sank to the floor even though the desk chair was right next to me. Sitting with my knees up really made me feel the metal ring on my right ankle. It was right in front of me, a physical representation of my house arrest. A wave of realization came over me as I thought about all those times that I'd blindly followed Magneto wherever he went. I don't know that I'd call myself a blind follower for what I did, but for the sheer fact that I did it so often. Without thought. Without worry. In the time that I spent with the Brotherhood, I met a lot of criminals, and from what I'd seen, they were all the same in one aspect: denial. I grew up in a suburb when I was younger. My family wasn't rich, but we were well off and so were most of the people I knew. Whenever people saw horrible things on the news – kidnappings, murders, natural disasters – we all thought the same thing. We all do. It's not going to happen to me. We all think it, pushing away the nagging voice in the back of our minds saying that yes, yes it could. Of course it could. I haven't ever known someone who willingly commits crimes on a regular basis to go into them thinking, _Oh my God, we're not going to get out of this without getting caught._ No, it's always, _It couldn't happen to me. That happens to other people, the ones who get careless._

Here I am. Living proof that It Couldn't Happen To Me Syndrome lies. And now for the rest of my life I was going to have to remember that I was once a prisoner. I hadn't asked for this kind of guilt when I left Xavier's school.

A sharp knock on the door made me jump out of my concentration. "Who is it?" I asked warily. I wondered where this sudden train of thought came from. I guess having all the time in the world – well, five years – to sit around could cause someone to do some heavy thinking. Especially when they refused to leave their room.

"It's time for dinner," said a female voice outside my door. I thought I asked who it was, not what time it was. Maybe that was her name.

"Not hungry," I responded. Since when did someone prepare dinner for me? Ever since I got here I'd been eating microwave dinners.

Then the damn girl just opened the door right up. Like my tone didn't convey that I wanted to be _left alone_. Time For Dinner was a small girl with black hair, and probably about my age. She poked her head through the door and said just as belligerently, "We figured you might not want to eat with everyone else, but to be honest, people here are too busy to make you something when you _are_ hungry, so you may as well eat now."

I glared. Who _was_ this person? Then I realized why she was here. Nobody wanted to see me. Why should Storm or anybody else in charge send Bobby, Rogue, or any other of the dozens of kids I knew, when they could send a perfect stranger who had no reason to cause trouble with me? I sighed as I got off the floor. I may be stuck here for what seems like an eternity, but I wasn't welcome. The proof was the metallic clink of my anklet shifting as I stood up.

I followed the girl to the dining hall, which was pretty crowded. I frowned; this wasn't how we had done things when I was a student here. Most people just got their meals on their own, but there was some food on one of the tables and a few other tables that were already occupied. I scanned the room. There were a lot of people I recognized and a few I didn't know. Storm was sitting next to a clean-cut looking blonde with wings. They were so big he was sitting on a stool instead of a chair with a back. He looked like an idiot.

"John, have a seat here," Storm called. What choice did I have? I nodded, grabbed a plate and some food and walked over to her. I practically threw myself down into the chair and hunched over my plate, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and was content to just eat my food and go, but Storm tapped me on the arm and said, "John, you should meet the young man who found you. This is Warren."

That made me look up. I knew how this would be solved if I didn't have a fucking anklet on my foot. "You _bastard_! You fucking son of a bitch! If it weren't for you I wouldn't be a fucking _prisoner_!"

But, I did. I cleared my throat and quietly said, "Nice to meet you. Uh, thanks, I guess," and resumed eating. I was definitely lying when I said I wasn't hungry earlier.

"You're… John, right?" Warren said, probably feigning politeness, as he clearly already knew who I was. I noticed he had extended his hand, so I took it and gave it a quick shake.

"Yeah. John."

Anyone could sense that the conversation wasn't going to be going anywhere, so Storm put in probably the first thing that popped into her head, "Warren Worthington's our newest member. We've just assigned him the codename Angel."

"Angel, huh? I'm…" But I wasn't Pyro anymore. Not since they'd taken away all my lighters. I just stuffed more food in my mouth to keep myself from talking, and thought that this Warren guy must have possessed more angelic qualities other than the wings – until I noticed that he was sitting directly underneath a chandelier that gave off a warm glow. I rolled my eyes at myself.

Wait. "Worthington? You mean you're… you're that…" Man, I must've been really off my game. I couldn't very well say, "the son of that guy whose lab I incinerated." I just trailed off again. Everyone at that table must've thought I was incapable of coherent speech.

But Warren seemed to be okay. He just helped out with, "Yeah, my dad owns Worthington Industries."

"Yeah, that's it," I said, like I'd been trying to remember the name or something. God. Not a good thing to bring up at dinner. I wanted to talk about something else. "So," I said, looking at Storm, "what's the occasion?" indicating the dinner.

"No occasion. Just a potluck we have every so often. It's not really a set time when we do them, but, the Professor felt a bigger sense of community was needed here after… after we lost Ms. Grey, before she was found again," she said right out. "Of course," she quickly continued, "we've done other things as well, but this is just one of the steps our staff took. The kids have really been coming through with pulling their weight with the potlucks and getting out and talking to each other, so it's a good start."

I looked around. She was right, everyone was talking to someone else. A lot of the kids I knew were talking to people I didn't know them to hang out with before. Kitty used to always sit with Peter and now she was sitting with Jubilee. Time For Dinner was sitting with them too, and was eating so much that I decided to keep such an appropriate nickname for her. The three of them were having fun. Storm's comments made me realize I really was as alone as I felt I was when I was moping by myself in my room. I kept eating, but then I saw that Warren wasn't exactly sitting with anyone except a teacher, too.

Even though I got to the dining hall late, I finished eating faster than a lot of the people there, and finally got up to leave. I said a quick goodbye to the people I'd been sitting with and walked back to my room. I was really annoyed, though, when I heard the click of heels behind me.

"John, wait," Storm called. When I didn't respond, she said, "Let me just say something. You've been here for three days already and all you do is sit in your room. House arrest does not mean that you have to confine yourself to a single room. It means you have the chance to do something with your time."

I didn't even turn around. I don't need any lectures. "I'm fine," I said through gritted teeth, and kept going until I reached my door. No one wanted to see my face, and I wasn't going to see anyone else's either. I slammed the door shut and locked it, and then flopped onto the bed on my back. What was wrong with me? Storm and Warren had both been friendly enough, and… today's dinner _had_ tasted better than any microwave dinner. So why wasn't I happier about the chance to have dinner with some actual people instead of a kitchen island? I didn't really know, but I did know that five years is a long time when you've got nowhere to go but your room.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 4: "Don't you think so!"**

All right. I'm almost laughing at myself now. I know that if anyone else knew what was going on in my head for the past week, they would be. So only four days ago, I had dinner at the school potluck, getting my first taste of real home-cooked food in… lord. Since I left the school in the first place, probably. Damn, I'd really been missing out. And I'm laughing at myself now because whiny, "just leave me alone to sit in my room and eat microwaved food" John had become, "could really use some actual food" John. So much that I was, yes, willing to leave the room.

It was nearing lunchtime, but classes were still in session so there wouldn't be too many people poking around in the kitchen. It's weird. That night on Alcatraz felt like the whole world was coming down on me and like nobody could ever forgive themselves for whatever it was they had to do. But kids were going to classes again, and doing homework and making food for themselves or each other. Not like nothing had happened or that everything was going to be okay. Lots of them still had a somber look about them. It was more like everyone was coping. Dealing. Like I had to do if I wanted some real food. Among other things, but I decided to just start with the food for now.

The first day I arrived at the mansion as its prisoner, I saw Wolverine in the kitchen as I was being shown around and given some guidelines. He'd told me that any basics, food included, would be paid for by the state and the DMA. ("Department of Motor… Automobiles?" "The Department of Mutant Affairs, you punk!") I was allowed any food in the kitchen that didn't have someone else's name on it, and I could order groceries too. I could order stuff I need later, but I checked the kitchen to see what I had first.

The next five minutes were spent opening and closing every door in the kitchen. Cans of soup, cans of tuna, cans of all kinds of things, mac and cheese boxes, bags of pasta, sacks of rice – not to mention all the spices and herbs I found in one of the pantries. I opened the refrigerator. Nearly everything in there had a name on it. I recognized a lot of names that were scrawled across milk cartons, packages of cheese, and frozen chicken. Undaunted, I dug through the freezer and… score! An unlabeled bag of ground beef. Now, what was I supposed to do with it? Defrost it, of course.

I sat at the kitchen island with the bag in front of me for a good minute or so before I had the idea to look for a cookbook. I saw some books when I'd gone rummaging through all the pantries, and picked out what looked like a good one. Leaning against the island, I flipped through the pages to see what I could make with ground beef, and checked the table of contents. There, above the word "Table" was handwritten the name of the book's owner: _Jean Grey._

I felt a little odd, holding a book that belonged to a dead person, like she wouldn't have wanted me reading it. She probably owned a lot of things in this kitchen, actually. She was one of the most patient teachers I had while I attended this school, and wasn't the same person at all when Magneto picked her up. No one would know I felt this, but I was afraid of her. I had never been afraid of her at school. I guess it was that Jean Grey, the one that called herself Phoenix, that I was stupidly afraid would tear me apart for using her book without permission.

I shook my head, wondering why I let my mind wander so much lately. Then I looked at the still-frozen beef on the counter. _Come on, John. It's because you've given your mind absolutely nothing to do, that's why._ And so I set to work on cooking the first meal I'd made for myself.

I struggled a lot with the casserole I tried to make, and while it looked nothing like the picture, it still tasted okay. I took it over to the TV and was about to sit down when who should come in but Time For Dinner, holding a large pizza box. Before I could even put my food down, she'd taken the seat I was planning on sitting in and turned the TV to a channel showing baseball.

_You know what, John_, I told myself, _just remember what you came down to the kitchen to do._ And that was to deal with my new situation one step at a time, and the step I was taking today was making food. Not conversing with – oh my God, with freaks who are smaller than me and can consume an entire extra large pizza by themselves.

I resigned myself to the kitchen island once again. Every so often Time For Dinner would cheer or boo at the television. Before I could finish eating – oh, no. It was Bobby and Rogue. I hadn't seen either of them at all since I got here, but I was bound to sooner or later. Our eyes met but nobody said anything, as Bobby strode over to the refrigerator.

If there's one thing I hate, it's an awkward silence. I'm almost positive Bobby does what he can to add an icy chill to it. I hate silences more than confrontation, so I do something about it. "You two been enjoying the cure?" I sneered. Rogue gave me a dirty look, but didn't say anything.

Bobby glared at me and said, "You'd better watch yourself around here, _Pyro_." I cringed a little inwardly, trying not to show it. If I were really Pyro anymore, I was a handicapped Pyro. "Anything you do could land your sorry ass in jail. But you know that already, don't you?" he continued.

"Bobby, Bobby. I thought you were always afraid of a fight, but I guess I was wrong. Looks like you're willing to take me if you're safe in the mansion with lots of your little X-Men here to protect you!" I shot back. Bobby was wrong. They couldn't stop me from talking.

Bobby planted his hands squarely on the counter and leaned his glare in closer. "You left, and don't you forget it. And don't fool yourself into thinking that every mutant is welcome here. Just so we've got that clear."

I wanted to wipe that sneer right off his face. I couldn't just sit here and take it. He thought he was so self-righteous, the bastard. It would be so easy…

I remembered Wolverine telling me, "People like us, we don't get too many second chances." It didn't matter that this mansion was keeping me prisoner – it was better than any jail cell. I collected myself and told Bobby calmly, "I'm not here because I want to be."

"Then you don't have to be! No one wants you here anymore, you know why? You're a traitor!" Bobby yelled.

"Hey, hey," interrupted Rogue before either of us could continue. She looked more annoyed than angry. "You two jus' leave each other alone. Like there's not enough fightin' already."

I couldn't believe I used to go to school with such idealists. Her, Storm, everyone who thought I should be "rehabilitated." Always so convinced they were right, especially when it came to thinking anyone could be just like them, fighting the good fight. I got up to leave, and didn't even get a chance to before Wolverine showed up.

"Hey, you. Big shot. They want you in the office," he said.

"See ya, Bobby," I called out, knowing he wouldn't try anything in front of Wolverine. I couldn't take any more of this. Eventually I'd snap and hit Bobby in the face or something. I'd either have to avoid him or make up with him, and the latter was about as likely as Beast showing up telling me everything was a mistake, and I was free to go.

I walked glumly into the office, and as if to answer my thoughts, McCoy was standing there was Storm and a red-haired woman I didn't know. "Tell me something good," I said to McCoy, as Wolverine left.

"John, this is Miss Amelia Voght," he said, indicating the redhead, motioning that I should shake her hand. I did.

"Hi, John," she said.

"Miss Voght is a nurse, but has substantial amounts of work with mutant rehabilitation, mostly with those that had remained underground about their mutant status. She will be assisting you during your stay here."

Before I could ask any questions about why I needed assistance, she said, "I'm going to be like your therapist, John. Just think of me as a counselor. All I'm going to do is talk to you for an hour every two weeks to see how you're doing, all right? Nothing scary."

"I didn't ask for a counselor," I said hesitantly, without caring how rude it sounded. "I don't need one."

Hank answered. "Be that as it may, this is what the state is asking for, and it would do you good to cooperate with them. Remember what the court said. Your eligibility for parole is in three years, and counseling is one judge of how ready you are for that." Oh, yeah. I didn't even think of that.

"I know, John. Nobody wants to do these things," Amelia said sympathetically. I thought maybe she meant herself included, when she added, "I knew I had to do what I could to help when I heard about Charles. You know he would've wanted you back on your feet." I nodded, mostly because good behavior started now if I wanted to get out of here. "Now, I'm just here to meet you today, but we'll be starting our sessions tomorrow. I'll be here in the morning, so be ready."

"Yeah," I answered. We arranged to meet at ten in one of the staff offices, and I left the headmaster's office. I was walking down the hallway back to my room when I heard a faint groan.

It was Wolverine. He was on the floor with one of his hands on his forehead. "Where… where… I'm back at the school!" he muttered.

"Wolver – Logan?" I stepped gingerly towards him. "What are you doing?" He started to stand up as soon as he saw me coming, but seemed to change his mind halfway.

"Ugh…" he growled, and one of the doors in the hallway flew open.

"Logan!" It was Kitty Pryde. She rushed over and said, "Are you okay?" putting an arm around his waist.

"Kid…" he said, looking at me. "You need to get Storm!" He must have been a little dazed, though, because he started walking in the direction of her office himself. I rushed ahead anyway. I'd never seen Wolverine like this before. I started to panic. If something had spooked Wolverine, weren't the rest of us in trouble?

I knocked quickly on the door, and went in without even waiting for an answer. "John?" Storm said. Beast was still in the office with her, but Amelia was gone. "What's wrong?"

"It's Xavier, Storm! It's the Professor," Wolverine shouted.

"What!" Storm cried. I just looked at him. The professor had died!

"Oh, my stars. What in the world are you talking about?" Hank said.

"It's the Professor!" Wolverine just repeated.

"But what _happened_?" Storm said, getting a little worked up. She stepped in between me and Wolverine, and gripped his shoulders. "You must tell me!"

Wolverine caught his breath, and said, "I was just leaving the office. In the hallway. Then all of a sudden I'm in Sycamore Park! It's – it's like it was _Nightcrawler_ or something, but I'd know that stink if I smelled it and I ain't smelling _anything_."

Kitty spoke up. "That's at least five miles from here."

"How very odd!" Hank said. "Are you sure of yourself, Logan?"

"Of course I am!" he growled. "I've been there before, I know the smells, and I was there two minutes ago. I was sitting in the park for five whole minutes wondering what the hell just happened, decided to walk back to the school, and then before I knew it I was in the hallway again."

"Did you see the Professor?" Storm pressed. "Did you?"

Logan paused, and then said, "No. I didn't. But it _had_ to be him. Maybe his powers are messing around right now. Maybe he's trying best he can to reach out to me!"

Storm's shoulders sagged, clearly disappointed. "Then you don't know for sure that it was him, Logan."

"It was Xavier. It _had_ to be!" Logan said through clenched teeth. "Don't you think so!"

I glanced at Kitty. She was giving me the same look that I was giving her. We didn't know _what_ to think.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 5: "Heard it. Lived it. Bought the movie rights."**

It had been a long morning. I yawned as I made myself lunch. I wasn't used to getting up early. Since I had nothing to do, I usually slept in and today was the first day I had to actually get up for something. And that something hadn't been very pleasant. Today I had my first session with Amelia Voght, the nurse that was acting as my counselor. I'd planned on making it one hour of feeding her as much bullshit as I realistically could.

Beast had said that this counseling was one way of knowing whether or not I could be eligible for parole, but he hadn't exactly said what the other ways were. I felt kind of like the entire staff was monitoring me on a surveillance camera without telling me that I did something wrong if I happened to. So I figured that this Amelia person was a ticket out of here. If I managed to convince her that I was on my way to recovery, realizing that the X-Men really were great people, couldn't hate myself more for the terrible things I'd done, blah blah blah… maybe I'd be spending three years in this school instead of five.

But when I actually started talking to her, she turned out not to be one of those goofy "And how does that make you feel?" type counselors. And she didn't really give me much of a chance to praise the X-Men and weep for retribution like I'd planned to. She started out by asking me how I felt physically. Then she asked about a dozen questions about my family, my schooling, and my friends. Most of it stuff I didn't really want to think about again, unfortunately. I didn't really want to talk about my family, but she wanted some background information on me. I'd said, "Don't they have all this in my school records?"

Amelia looked like she wanted to roll her eyes at me, but just said, "John, I'm here to talk to you. I want to know what you have to say about all this. You can tell me things that school records can't."

I wished I could tell her to piss off, but I just resigned myself to my fate as a prisoner and swallowed some of my pride. I told her about how my parents were always pushing me even though I did fairly well in school, and how my father used to call me Potential Boy after I whined that all my teachers ever did was tell me that I had potential.

"John, have you ever felt that those weren't just empty words?" Amelia put down her notebook.

"Heard it. Lived it. Bought the movie rights," I shook my head at her.

"Really, refusing to listen to what other people have to say about you is the first step to _truly becoming_ Potential Boy." This time she really did roll her eyes. I grinned. Amelia wasn't one of those do-gooder social worker types who thought that she could reach out to everyone. I figured she was only here as a late favor to Professor Xavier, and I didn't think she was going to push me. I felt a little better about the sessions, but I knew I was still going to have to fake some my enthusiasm if I wanted this to work.

We talked some more, and Amelia changed topics by saying, "Looks like disappointing your family was an extreme sport for you," and then dredged up the topic of my feelings on the house arrest. Well, it was more about how I'd been cooping myself up in my room rather than my feelings, which was immensely better. "So how's the house part of the house arrest treating you, John?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The house. The kids, your living situation, everything. This place wasn't built to be a prison, you know."

"Yeah, I know. But it sure as hell feels like it to me. And all the kids living here would rather I were somewhere else, so it's not like I'm going to be talking to any of them," I said defiantly. I wasn't going to be made to socialize with anyone I didn't want to talk to. It's not like I wanted to be talking to Amelia, either.

"Well, whether you like it or not, John, this is your home now. You may as well treat it like your home."

"I'm not going to spray graffiti on the walls if that's what you mean."

"It's _not_, in fact. I mean that if you started thinking of this place as your home instead of your prison, you might enjoy yourself more. So, you told me that you've at least been spending some time in the kitchen, that's a cool thing. But you might want to step outside your room a little more. How weird is it that you don't know some of the people who are living in the same place as you are?"

I didn't answer, because I was too busy thinking. Bobby had said that I wasn't wanted here. Of course, everyone else was already thinking it; Bobby had just been the first one to say it out loud. Whatever. No matter what everyone else thought about it, I still belonged here. Hell, I was imprisoned here with a metal anklet that said I couldn't go anywhere else! If nobody else thought that meant I was supposed to be here, then I decided right then and there that it was going to be their problem.

And at the end of the hour Amelia closed her notebook and said, "Right, John. Then I'll see you in two weeks, and we'll see how much you've lived up to your potential… boy."

I actually laughed in spite of myself. "Bye, then." I stood up to leave, and looked around the room a little bit. It was an office used by Professor Xavier sometimes, filled with slightly more personal, school-unrelated things than the larger headmaster's office. They had kept the office exactly as he had left it. As I was leaving the door I noticed a small, chipped mug on a wall shelf the read "World's Best Teacher/Telepath". The "/Telepath" portion had been hand painted on.

"Jean made that for him when she was only fourteen years old," Amelia said. "He drank out of it all the time." She left before the tears brimming her eyes could fall.

I hated everyone responsible for putting me here, for letting me see the other side of the professor's death. Things were a lot less complicated when I didn't see things from all the angles. Magneto _had always_ told me that I had to see the big picture if I wanted to help with the Brotherhood's success. But things like that are easier said than done, and now that I was here I was going to get a first-hand experience at how difficult it really is to see different sides of the picture.

Then I was making lunch. The kitchen, if I timed it right, turned out to be a great place to be alone when I wasn't in my room. Jean's cookbooks were really starting to help, and sometimes when I couldn't quite find what I needed, I felt like I could almost hear Professor Xavier's voice telling me, "Keep going." Whenever that happens, though, I feel dumb for thinking so because it was probably just an old memory from one of his classes. I remember I had one with him on literature analysis, and he asked me to talk about a passage from one of the books. I'd been on a roll, and then my brain just kind of blanked out, and he'd said gently, "Keep going."

I felt a little embarrassed at that memory, and focused on my stir-fry to keep up a pretense of being occupied. When that had happened, I was grateful. I was grateful for a lot of things he had done, actually, especially when I first arrived at the school. It was amazing how he managed to take a personal interest in each and every student. Magneto was gone from my life now and the professor wasn't around to hear it, but I suddenly wished I could take back what I had said about him. That I would've killed him. I shook my head at myself with a small smile on my lips. No, I wouldn't have. If there's one thing my life is lacking, it's respect. Respect for myself, respect for me from others, and respect for other people. I haven't found too many people that were deserving, and apparently not too many had found me deserving of respect either. Professor Xavier had been both.

I almost wondered why I said that to Magneto in the first place, and then I remembered. Oh yeah. Having a leader like Magneto is like having a parent like my father. Always having to prove yourself, showing him you can do better and constantly trying to one-up yourself. I smiled lightly again as I realized that had I had the guts to kill the professor, Magneto would've just found a reason to berate me for it.

Even though it was still kind of early in the day, Wolverine's ravings about the Professor's coming back had mostly died down. No one had actually seen him, not even Wolverine, so he stopped talking about it. Storm and Beast had both told him that they believed that he really had teleported somehow, since he was so sure of it. I was pretty sure I believed him, too – I'd never seen him so shaken up before, and he didn't have a reason to lie, did he? But everyone, myself included, was pretty skeptical that the Professor had anything to do with it. I think Wolverine just wanted everyone to forget about that now. He didn't like people thinking he was going crazy. Maybe he was. I'd never say it to his face, though.

_Keep going_, I thought, and finished cooking. Damn, when I cook, I really think way too hard. Definitely too hard if I had completely ignored the fact that the cookbook said, "Serves eight," and made my food directly from the recipe. What was I going to do with all that food? I could freeze it and eat it later, but I had enough time on my hands to make more food and I would get sick of eating this. That got me thinking. Earlier, Amelia had asked me if I thought it was weird that I was living in the same place as a bunch of people I didn't know. And I had decided that I'd spent enough time moping.

This was going to be a home for me instead of a prison. I thought I was going to fake all kinds of optimism when I went in for counseling, so I was surprising myself. I shrugged and decided to go ahead with a plan that was forming in my head. Besides, what did I care about what people thought about me? I was feeling good by the time I realized that I was coming back – old John, Pyro, the troublemaking firestarter who didn't give a damn what people thought of him. Nobody could say anything. I was supposed to be here.

I found another bowl for the extra food and walked off into the hallway. What I'd planned to do was knock on each door until I found out who lived behind each one. Nobody was forcing me to do it, so I didn't mind so much. This was my house now, wasn't it? I had a right to know the basic layout of it. Or maybe I was just being nosy.

Door number one revealed Jubilee. She looked at me for a few seconds before venturing a wary, "Hi…"

"Hi. Want some food?"

"You've got to be kidding me," she said, crossing her arms.

"No, it's good. Really," I said with a smirk. Nobody was going to believe I was knocking on doors just to be friendly. I was going to enjoy this.

"No thanks, John. I'm having lunch with some friends. You know. People who don't turn their back on you," she said, and started to close the door.

"Suit yourself, sweet cheeks."

Behind the next door lived a little boy, Artie, who was just arriving as I was leaving the school. "Hey there, kiddo. I'm John. Want some food?"

"No, thank you."

"What, did they tell you not to take food from strangers?"

"No. I know who you are. But they said that you were a petulant, attention-starved delinquent with defiance against authority figures and that statistics say that your present misbehavior will probably lead to many more serious crimes."

I blinked.

"Do you even know what all those words mean?" I said, putting a hand on my hip.

Artie shook his head and replied, "Bobby told me that. Can I try some?"

I laughed at him while inwardly punching Bobby in the teeth. "Sure, have all of it," I said, handing him the bowl.

I went several more doors, all of them containing people I didn't know. So I introduced myself to about five more people, none of whom seemed to be that interested. I know for a fact that all the residents of the school had been warned about me, that I was a criminal, and that I wasn't to leave the school grounds. These kids all knew who I was and what exactly I was doing here, and probably wondered why I had even left my room. I told some of them that I was taking a census. None of them bought it, of course, but one of the girls even played along until she got bored about two seconds afterwards.

I skipped the rooms I knew belonged to Bobby and Rogue. Hey, I'd already met them since my stay here. Then I knocked on another door, and it was answered by Kitty.

She gave me the same kind of once-over that everyone else had. "Hi," she said.

"Hi, Kitty. Want some food?"

She was going to say, "No, thank you," just like everyone else, and then I would say, "All right then. See you later," and move on to the next door.

"What kind?"

"Huh?"

"I said, what kind of food?"

"It's… beef stir-fry, it's in the kitchen. You want some?"

"Sure, I'll have some. But I have to get back to work afterwards." That was more than fine by me. I hadn't exactly planned on hanging out.

I took Kitty back to the kitchen, where she examined my handiwork for a second, and then served herself. "Thanks for the food, John."

"I had too much anyway," I replied airily. "It's not like I made it for you."

She gave me a look, and then bent down over her food and quietly said, "Thanks _anyway_," icily enough to match Bobby's tones when he spoke to me.

We ate in silence until we heard some arguing in the hallway. I stared in that direction, until I realized that it was just frantic yelling and not arguing. Kitty got up and ran right through the wall, and then I could hear her voice joining the group of people out there. Not a minute later she phased right back into the kitchen, saying, "They found him," with a confused look on her face.

Wolverine ran around the corner to come in to the room. "You were right," he said, looking at me. "They found him at one of the locations you gave, but he got away." I knew then who he was talking about: Magneto. The looks on their faces - there had to be something else they weren't telling me.

He still hadn't been captured. I didn't know whether to feel relieved, or feel like I was stuck serving house arrest time for nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 6: "Hell, I'm taking all of it."**

In all my life, I never imagined that my days would become so dull. I get up, mark off another day, cook, clean the kitchen, read the newspaper, and occasionally do laundry because the only things I came to Xavier's School with were the clothes on my back and a couple of other clothes that were given to me. And occasionally talking to Storm about rehabilitation options. So far a community service opportunity hasn't come up that I could participate in from campus grounds, so I haven't been doing much. I'd sit around in the common rooms sometimes, and people would occasionally say hello to me, or studiously ignore me. Please. Like they haven't seen a twenty-something mutant convict who'd worked for their headmaster's enemy confined to their home before.

Never mind. I could see why no one wanted to talk to me.

At any rate, I never liked having this kind of routine in my life. Wasn't that a huge part of why I left to join Magneto, so I could be out actually making a difference for mutant rights instead of passively sitting around? The newspaper, that was one thing that gave me some mixed feelings. Anti-mutantism was, as always, getting more and more serious and sometimes I felt relieved to be away from it all, just tired from all the fighting. But most of the time I wished that I could be out there doing something about it. At least with Magneto, I'd taken some action. Even if it meant that other people got hurt sometimes.

I hadn't felt guilty about the deaths of those people in the lab, or the dozens of other people who had gotten in Magneto's way that I'd taken care of, until that day in the court room. My trial was certainly an awakening experience. From the initial, panicking _Oh God, I've been caught_ feeling to the knowledge that I'd never be able to erase this from my past, I spent all day thinking about it sometimes. Funny how being charged guilty will do that to you. I never gave it a second thought before this.

When I was thinking about this, I was sitting in my room fidgeting with a ballpoint pen and wistfully remembered that I always had to have something to do with my hands to keep myself from going crazy. Probably why I always made sure to clean up the kitchen after making my food, so I'd have something to keep me busy just a little bit longer, before I went off to do nothing. The pen wasn't close at all to the hot metal feel of my old shark Zippo lighter. It was what I had been holding when I first found out that I wasn't normal, that my life was going to be a lot harder from then on, and I'd kept it as a small but powerful reminder ever since. When I fashioned wrist-bound lighters for myself, I still kept that old Zippo in my pocket. I wished I had it back, and then suddenly wondered how I'd gone so long without it.

I threw down the pen and made my way over to Wolverine's room. Nobody had told me who had my lighters, but I could guess. It would be the person that I'd be the most afraid to approach. I wasn't afraid of Wolverine, not really, but you'd have to be able to manipulate the metal on his bones to say he wasn't intimidating. I'd be able to talk to him about my lighter, though. For awhile I'd sort of avoided him, since I still felt a little resentful and wished I could lay a hand on him for what he'd done to Magneto. I really did hate him for awhile, but those feelings faded a little bit when I thought more about what Magneto had been planning to do and how even he couldn't stop Phoenix. And besides, Wolverine had also been pretty hospitable to me since I'd been here. We weren't on opposite sides of a fight anymore, so he couldn't do anything to me for standing up to him.

I was walking down the hallway where Wolverine's room was, and some kids were walking through moving between their classes, when Kitty Pryde noticed me and waved. I guess it wasn't that weird, since she used to be someone I'd sometimes say hello to, an acquaintance, but we never talked much. I didn't have a reason to start now, though, so I just pretended not to notice. Pretending only gets you so far - until the person you're trying to blow off is right in front of you. I gave her a half-hearted wave back and tried to look as uninterested as possible as I kept going.

"Hey, John!" she called. She just didn't give up, did she?

"What?"

"Just wanted to ask what's up," she said casually.

I didn't even bother answering. "Don't you have class?"

"I'm done for the day." Great. Then she had the whole rest of the day to bug me. "I was kind of wondering what you were doing to pass the time, if you wanted something to do."

I couldn't believe it. She was feeling sorry for me. That's the last thing that I wanted from anyone in this place. Either that, or I hoped she was just miserable that whatever it was she and Peter had before I left the school didn't work out, and needed company. I only knew this because I'd always seen them together. All of a sudden I come back and from what I know they haven't said two words to each other. Doesn't take a telepath to put two and two together, even when one isn't interested in the everyday dramas of mutant students. "Oh, did you want to wallow in misery with me?" I said, falsely cheery. I leaned in and added, "Just needed to get away from Tinhead, huh? Did it not work out because he was too busy admiring himself? That would explain why Tinhead's sporting a new muscle shirt. And, yeah, that would also explain why I saw the Tinmobile getting a fresh new wash outside the other day."

Kitty was unfazed. She just scoffed and said, "He's not like that in the least, John. Clearly you don't know him at all." I didn't. So?

"Clearly," I repeated back at her, and turned away.

"Fine," she called out from behind me. "I'll see you later, then."

Later? I wondered what it would take to make her put a lid on it, if that outburst hadn't.

I was about to knock on Wolverine's door, but he opened it himself before I could. That damn guy always seems to know things like that. "That wasn't very nice," he said, when he saw me.

I shrugged. "Not my problem," I said dismissively.

Wolverine leaned against the doorpost and said, "It _is_ your problem if you haven't given somebody the appropriate respect."

That caught me off guard. Okay, now there was no way that he could've known _that_ about me, that it's something I actually regard as important.

When I didn't say anything, his expression softened a little bit and he said, "I'll be honest with ya here. Nobody's jumping out of their shoes that you're here, but we're all ready to give you another chance."

That made me glare at him, and I thought, _You don't know that_.

"I'll tell ya why I know it, too," he continued. Damn it. That settled it; the man sensed way more about things than was healthy. "It's cause _I'm_ still here. You know, when I first got here, people were no happier about it than they were about you. And I haven't left yet, but that ain't because I have to be here. There are people who want to help."

I nodded, because I wasn't sure what else to say.

"I'd say you owe one of those people an apology."

I gave him a sheepish grin and said, "You heard all of that, didn't you?" He raised his eyebrows and gave me an "are you serious?" expression to remind me that his hearing was just as good as his sense of smell.

I remembered why I was there in the first place, and figured I should be on his good side if I wanted to get my lighter back. So even though I had no intention of doing so, I said, "I guess you're right," and paused to change the subject. "Logan?" I ventured, not sure what he wanted me to call him anymore.

"Yeah, kid?"

Better just say it straight out. "I thought maybe you had my Zippo, and was wondering if I could get back from you – you know I wouldn't try anything with a tracking device on me."

"Oh, really?" he challenged.

"Come on, Logan. I'm over the stove downstairs every day, so having the lighter back wouldn't change anything." I don't know why, but for some reason taking the fire from the stove felt like cheating somehow. It just seemed so lame. "I haven't caused anyone any trouble. I just want it back, cause it's mine." Oh, God. I hoped I wouldn't have to resort to pleading.

He stared straight at me without changing his unreadable expression. "Well, nobody said I couldn't give it back to you, John." The use of my name surprised me. The fact that I was right about Wolverine's having my lighter did not. "Tell ya what. You come back when you've said your apologies to Kitty."

I should've guessed it wasn't going to be that easy.

Five minutes later, I was knocking on Kitty's door. She opened the door and, as she was shorter than me, glared her eyes upwards at me.

"What?"

I honestly didn't care that she knew the real reason for my apology. So I told her, "Hey, Kitty. I'm… sorry about earlier. Didn't really mean it."

Kitty's "are you serious?" expression could have rivaled Wolverine's. "Well, I was going to apologize anyway. Really. And then I was talking to Logan, and he kind of made me feel bad about the whole thing, and said he'd give me back my lighter if I did say I was sorry. Just wanted you to know that's part of it," I added quickly.

"Uh-huh," she said slowly, without revealing anything on her face. Man, that fucking X-Men stoicism.

"Would you be satisfied with a 'Sorry, I won't do it again'?" I tried.

"_That_ I'd like to see." She shook her head. "You're not going to go through with it, but I'd love to see you try." Kitty paused, and then said with a sigh, "Fine. John, even when you're apologizing you're just doing it for yourself. But hey, you're here for awhile. I'm going to count on the hope that you might learn one of these days."

She sounded exactly the way she did when I took classes with her. Always looking out for the best in people, wasn't she? I was about to say something along the lines of, "We're good, then," and leave, but she stepped outside the room and said, "Come on, let's go get your lighter back."

I swallowed another nasty comment and choked it back up in the form of a scowl, and then followed her back upstairs. Wolverine's door was still open, so Kitty knocked on the wall beside it and peeked in. "Hey, kiddo," he said, smiling at her. "Did this punk say something to you?" he said in mock anger. I almost wished I had someone to joke around with, but pushed the feeling aside.

"It's okay, Logan," she grinned. "He just wants his lighter back, is all. It was more like, 'Sorry, can I have it back now?'" They both laughed, and I scowled some more. Wolverine reached into a dresser drawer and threw the old thing at me. God, the moment I caught it, I felt something familiar in my hands. I hadn't had that feeling in so long.

So that's where it'd been this whole time. In a simple dresser drawer. It felt a little anti-climatic. Did I expect it to be in, say, a safe or something? But no, they had no reason to be afraid of me. If I abused my powers, I had a tracking device on me that would tell them exactly where I'd gone. I rubbed the lighter between my fingers. "Thanks," I said to him, and caught myself when I felt that I actually meant it.

I gave him a nod and left the room. In the hallway I stopped and flicked it open. _Click_. I felt the switch strike down on the flint as I had a million times before, but there was no flame. I pressed it several more times, and then I shook the lighter next to my ear. "Son of a _bitch_!"

"They emptied it, huh?"

I spun around. Kitty was down the hall behind me. "Yeah," I said simply.

"Sorry," she said. "I mean – I didn't know what they were doing with you or anything, I didn't know about the lighter either. But sorry anyway."

I nodded. There wasn't going to be any way I could get more fuel for it, either. Who the hell was going to buy any for me? I loved that old lighter, but this was one of those times that I grew especially angry about the fact that I needed it, that I couldn't create my own fire.

As if to read my thoughts, Kitty spoke up again, saying, "I know where you can get some more fuel, John."

"Are you just playing with me, Kitty?" I said. If she really did, I didn't want to sound too angry, but I was annoyed that she was still there. I was mad and didn't want her to see it.

"Yeah. I sure do," she said, actually smiling at me this time.

Kitty lead me to the doors of the basement. "What's down here?" I asked. I'd actually been down there once before, and it was almost ridiculous how huge it was. After all, it did span the entire area of the whole mansion, in one big room.

"A lot of stuff," she said, not helping at all. She flipped a light switch and we ventured down the stairs. It wasn't one of those creepy basements that you had to bring a flashlight into. It couldn't afford to be, what with being so huge. A person could get lost down there.

"You weren't kidding," I told her, as I took a look around. Most of it was file cabinets and boxes, with some furniture scattered here and there. It was dusty, and I couldn't decide if it looked abandoned or not. It certainly had that feel to it, but there was so much stuff there that people must have been in the basement often enough.

"Over here," Kitty said, pointing to a stack of boxes next to an old, tired-looking armchair. As I walked over to where she was standing, I felt my heart pound a little faster. _PYRO_, the boxes were all labeled in neat, careful handwriting. There was something about finding your name on some lost boxes in a basement that felt like seeing your name on a tombstone.

I kneeled down next to Kitty, who was already opening some of the boxes. She noticed the look on my face, and explained, "We… Bobby and Rogue packed your things away when you left. I mean, I only did a little bit. I was mostly just trying to be helpful. They did most of it." She paused to rifle through a box that contained some notebooks. "The Professor asked them to, but he didn't really say whether they should pack it or get rid of it. So they… I mean, obviously, they didn't get rid of it. I think they were hoping that you would - I mean -" she stopped. I nodded. I knew what she meant. She continued, "They were really the only ones who knew about this, and I only know this is all here because I hung out with them and helped. But I guess everybody else either didn't care, or just forgot about it when you came back."

I had been opening as many boxes as I could as I listened to her talk. "It's all here," I told her. "All my notebooks and clothes and stuff."

"Yeah," she said, "You should bring the clothes back upstairs with you."

"Hell, I'm taking all of it," I said. I never looked back when I left, but these things were what I had when I had a home. That meant something, didn't it? I didn't miss having my stuff when I was working for Magneto, but seeing all of it again – man, I did miss it. The feeling that I got when Wolverine tossed my lighter at me – it was all coming at me in a flood.

I was so busy looking at a red sweater that had once been my favorite that I don't think I even remembered why I was in the basement in the first place until Kitty said, "Hey, I found them," and shoved a small box at me. It was full of stuff I'd kept in one of my desk drawers – pencils, a calculator, other school supplies, and about a dozen assorted lighters.

"Hey, wow…" I said. I picked up one of the lighters and tried it out. It gave me a lovely, steady flame, which I was more than happy to pick up with my thumb and forefinger. I curled it up into a ball, and rolled it over my fingers. I actually laughed. So did Kitty.

I played with the flame some more before throwing it into the palm of my hand and putting it out by clasping my fist over it. I wanted to see if I would be able to put some of the fuel into my shark Zippo.

I was. It was satisfying to feel the click of the Zippo and see it give me a flame again. When that was done, Kitty said, "Want me to help carry some of the boxes up?"

"Wouldn't object to it," I said.

The two of us made a few trips back and forth – thank God my room was on the first floor – before all of the boxes with my name on them had been brought to my new room. I idly hoped Storm wouldn't mind my making it look less like a prison.

I sat back on the bed, flicked open my lighter, and said, "Hey, thanks, kiddo," using the name Wolverine had used earlier. She gave me a weird look, but said, "No big."

"No, really," I said. "Thanks a lot." I don't know why I felt like it had to be reiterated. Maybe because I'd actually meant it.

Before either of us could say anything more, we heard a huge slam – the sound the main door of the school makes when someone absolutely just bursts inside and it's opened too hard and too fast, so that it bangs into the wall. Immediately following it were several loud cries and some shouting. I could always hear everything that went on in the main entrance from my room. Kitty and I shot a glance at each other and we ran out of the room. Or, rather, she went through the door and I had to open it.

Storm was supporting a boy by the waist and helping him walk into the building. It was the boy who was crying and moaning, and with good reason – his entire left arm was mangled and looked like it had been run over by a car. Storm was accompanied by Beast and Wolverine had already rushed downstairs.

"Hank, go on ahead and get the infirmary ready! Charlie, you can do it – Logan, help me! We couldn't take him to a hospital, there were just too many – Hank, call for help, too!" Storm was harried, trying to talk to too many people at once.

"What happened?" I asked. I was ignored. I noticed that it wasn't just the boy's arm. He looked like he was in his late teens, and had light brown hair that was streaked with blood. It was also was running down the side of his face, and he walked with a discouraging limp.

"Too many _what_, Storm?" Wolverine demanded.

"It's them again," she replied tersely. "The Friends of Humanity – they would have followed us to the hospital if we tried to get him there, so we put him in the Blackbird."

The Friends of Humanity. The Ku Klux Klan of our mutant world. Now that was a name I'd repeatedly been seeing in the newspaper.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 7: "Pyro, you stay put."**

Hank McCoy was busy bandaging the new boy in the school's infirmary while Storm called up a local doctor who had done some work at the school before. Naturally, any of the students who had been around when the boy was brought in flocked to the infirmary to see what the commotion was about, me and Kitty included. It was an absolute zoo – the kids were peering into the room and chattering amongst themselves while Wolverine was desperately trying to shoo them out. The boy was still crying and kept saying, "I didn't mean to!" Storm was watching the boy while talking on the phone and feeling around for the speakerphone button.

"- you can't do that," the voice on the other end of the phone said. "He'll bleed to death before you can even –" It was all I heard before I was kicked out, too.

"The Friends of Humanity?" Kitty said, looking up at me.

"Yeah. A hate group," I replied, my eyes still on the infirmary. Man, it sucked that a kid got hurt, but this was the most excitement I'd gotten in days. I wanted to know what was going on!

"I know who they are," she said. I could barely hear her over the rest of the kids that were talking. We stood there for a few more seconds.

Then, Wolverine burst through the infirmary's double doors. "All right!" he barked. "Everyone – _everyone_ – out! Pyro!" he pointed at me. He'd been calling me John not long ago.

Startled, I just said, "What?" but it couldn't be heard above the noise.

"Pyro, you stay put. Everyone else go! Now! We're gonna need some quiet. Out!"

"What do you mean?" I said. Apprehensive would be an understatement as to how I was feeling. Confused, I shot Kitty a glance and followed Wolverine. She met my look and left with the rest of the students.

Once back inside the infirmary, Storm looked at me and didn't waste any time saying, "John, please help this boy."

I saw the kid lying there, still muttering to himself, and couldn't help feeling sorry for him. I completely did. It doesn't matter that I'd hurt people in the past – I'd never let myself believe that I was that emotionless. The boy needed help. "Me?" I asked. "What? What do I do?"

"We can't stitch him up in time. We don't have a doctor here," Storm said.

"What about –" I started to say, looking at Hank.

"I'm an organic chemist, not a surgeon, and look at these hands," he said, with his massive palms up, since he was done bandaging the boy's head and leg.

"His side," Storm said. "We don't think anything's broken, so Dr. Ferguson said we should close it right away. Use your power, John, and cauterize it."

"_What_? I mean – I've never done that before."

"Please, John. You can do it. He may die if you don't," she pleaded, struggling to hold the boy's wound shut and she looked at me.

All right, this wasn't the sort of excitement that I was hoping for. Sure, I'd _burned_ plenty of people before, but this? This was going to have to be so controlled that I was actually nervous about using my abilities.

I'd already gotten my lighter out and flicked it open, though. I asked, "How do I do it?"

Hank answered, "We've already administered a small dose of painkillers. Don't put the lighter near him. Just control your flame so that it covers the least amount of surface area possible, and direct it only onto the wound. Only where the wound is."

I took a deep breath. At least, the boy had calmed down a little bit. I nodded at Storm, and then looked at the boy's right side.

Oh, God. How was this boy still conscious! It was a wide, horizontal gash outlined with bruises, and even as Storm was struggling to hold it shut, blood was pouring out of it. I hoped I wouldn't get too nauseated, and opened the flame on my lighter.

As soon as I had grabbed the flame in the air, I tossed the lighter on one of the steel tables to help me concentrate. I had to turn the flame into the thinnest ribbon possible. I led it towards one end of the wound, and as soon as it touched his flesh he screamed, and I flinched.

_Keep going_, I thought. I tried to remember every single lesson I'd had in control. Control, control, control. It was such a repeated theme in our lessons, so much that I was annoyed whenever the topic was brought up again. But now I knew that it was with good reason – without it, my fire would be ablaze everywhere. It could have even eaten me alive, as I'd learned on Alcatraz.

His right arm was fairly uninjured, and he used his forearm to cover his face, and managed to stay pretty strong. I don't know if he did that to help me or not, but it did, to have his arm out of the way. After the initial scream he didn't make too much noise, and I continued to trace the wound. Man, this kid was really in pain, and I didn't want to make it any worse. I didn't think I'd ever been up close to someone who was bleeding so profusely, and I had to admit it was pretty gruesome. I kept going, and Storm looked up at Hank, and said, "Call her again, please."

Hank picked the phone and dialed a number. Wolverine was just standing back, looking a little frustrated that he couldn't help and could only watch. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be once I got started, and soon I had cauterized the whole gash. When I finished, I felt the boy relax even though I hadn't physically been touching him. He had been so tensed up the entire time, but when I let go of the flame and let it out in my palm, he let out a long breath and said so quietly I could barely hear him, "Didn't mean to…"

"What's he talking about?" I asked Storm, who was also looking a little more relaxed.

"I'm not so sure," she said. "I was in the Blackbird with Hank, and we got a tip through local authorities that there was a small riot – anti-mutant related. He was already beaten pretty badly when we found him, but we don't _think_ he did anything – after all, it was members of the Friends of Humanity who were hurting him."

"Why?" I asked.

"Do they need a reason?" she retorted. "They just hate."

She held her lips in a thin line as she stared straight ahead, and her gaze was only broken when Hank said, "She's on her way."

"Hank, help me move this under his arm, here," Storm replied. Then she looked at me and said, "You don't have to stay in here if you don't want to, but will you please stay outside? I think we may need you to cauterize the wound on his leg if we can't close it up first – the bleeding's less severe there but I don't know yet."

"Yeah, sure. I'll wait outside," I said, and started to walk out the doors.

"John," she added. "We can't thank you enough." Wolverine and Beast actually both nodded and murmured in agreement. Beast wiped his brow and took off his glasses to wipe them off.

I just stood there, a little stunned. They were thanking me. I mean, it's not that I couldn't understand why, but I guess I just wasn't used to it. "It was – no big –" I stammered, using the phrase Kitty had when I'd thanked her just some minutes ago.

Storm, who had been looking incredibly stressed out, finally let out a smile and said, "You may have just saved this boy's life. John, go be proud of yourself."

I was even more stunned. Proud of myself? Well! When was the last time that had happened? Even weirder, when was the last time someone had _told_ me that I could be proud of myself?

Hell. I'd just stopped a kid from bleeding to death by careful control of my powers. Damn right I could be proud of myself. I'd helped, and now that kid may have a chance to live. Those son of a bitch mutant haters better get a load of this. We'd stopped them.

I left that infirmary with an immense feeling of satisfaction. Just this morning I'd been feeling like I couldn't do anything about mutant discrimination while imprisoned in the school, but I _had_. If that kid had bled to death that would've been a point for _them_. I realized my hands were shaking a little bit as I walked out, and I was staring at them, so I didn't notice that Kitty had run up to me.

"John, what happened?" I jerked my head up. "What did they want you for?" she said.

"They… oh, God. That kid was bleeding from his right side. They couldn't get a doctor here in time to stitch it up so they had me cauterize it before he could lose too much blood." The words just tumbled out once I started talking, and I had to let out another deep breath.

"So… did it work? Did you close the wound?" she asked anxiously.

I nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. It worked."

Kitty's face broke out into a wide smile. "Oh, John, you _didn't_. I can't believe it. That's amazing," she said, and gave me some relieved laughter.

"I _did_," I shot right back at her. "I kind of can't believe it myself," I chuckled. She started to say something, but was interrupted by a woman in a lab coat – had to be Dr. Ferguson – rushing past. She was quickly followed by two men with a stretcher. The doctor hurried into the infirmary and I could hear them talking.

"Oh, Jenna – thank God! We didn't even hear you coming."

"No sirens, of course! We couldn't tip anyone off where we were going, there are probably still some pretty angry people out there." The doctor told them that the boy could be taken to a local hospital from here, and as I peered into the room, I saw her place a hand on the boy's forehead. He immediately relaxed, and grew a sleepy look on his face. She was a mutant. And she was using some form of power to sedate him, or ease the pain somehow. They took this chance to move him gently onto the stretcher, and the phone rang. Storm grabbed the receiver and from what I could make out, she was talking to the boy's mother.

"Ororo, are you coming with us?" Dr. Ferguson asked.

Storm glanced at her, and said, "Let me just grab some things," and turned on the speakerphone so she could pick up everything that had fallen out of her purse when she dropped it on the floor of the infirmary earlier. "Mrs. Shields. We're now taking him to a hospital. You can meet us there," she called into the phone.

The woman on the other line was sobbing. "Please take care of my little boy!" I wondered if she knew that her son was a mutant. Actually, she probably did. I know I heard Storm mention the Friends of Humanity on the phone just minutes earlier. So the mother must have known. My parents – well, the short version was that they wanted me to get out. And yet this woman didn't care. She just wanted her son to be okay. That kind of love… it made me feel strange.

I walked away, and I could faintly hear Wolverine saying, "Should I stay with the kids?"

Dr. Ferguson replied, "I'd like to see if you can give him some blood." Apparently she knew about his mutation. So, he hopped into the ambulance as well, and soon they were all gone. I guess they hadn't needed me again after all. I almost wished I could join them to the hospital, since now I was curious about what would happen to the boy, but even if I could leave the mansion they probably wouldn't have let me.

Well. They weren't going to be back for awhile, so I just resigned myself to my room and let myself fall onto the covers, and just laid there for a few minutes. I drew my knees up and rubbed my ankle where the metal anklet was. Prisoner or not, I'd made a difference today. If only I could get my flames on the ignorant haters who had done this.

Then I noticed that all the boxes Kitty and I'd brought from the basement were still scattered on my floor. I'd almost forgotten. I jumped down to the floor and started going through them. I hadn't been making much of an effort at all to think of the school as a home instead of a prison, to be honest, but I would be lying if I said I didn't want it that way. Who wouldn't? All these things that belonged to me when I was at home, in my parent's home in a little suburb outside of Sydney, or when I lived at the school as a student – they suddenly made me feel more like I belonged here. There were notebooks filled with notes and doodles I'd done during classes. The scientific calculator I'd used on a chemistry final that I'd actually put a lot of effort into studying for. The red sweater I looked forward to wearing whenever the weather got colder.

I got to the bottom of one of the boxes and gingerly picked up something I hadn't thought about in years. It was a sign I hung on my door my first year here. It read, "_This room belongs to John Allerdyce. Do not disturb! Anything you want to say can be written on a square piece of paper and slid under the door, which will then be made into various origami figures for your viewing pleasure and then promptly incinerated_." I'd drawn some flames above the word "incinerated," too.

I laughed at myself. Man, I'd been such an angry kid. I'd had reason to be at the time, I guess, what with leaving my own parents and bringing horrible feeling of being unwanted with me. But I remember taking down that sign after I started making a few friends at Xavier's School, and putting it away carefully instead of throwing it out, just in case I needed it again. Yeah, I had been a part of this place. I just didn't know it at the time.

I started putting things away in drawers and the wardrobe, and was almost done when there was a knock on the door. "Read the sign," I said loudly.

"I don't have any paper." It was Kitty.

I sighed heavily and said, "Fine, come in," in a defeated tone. "What?" I asked when she phased through the door.

"Hey, John," she said brightly. "Heard about what happened."

"Well, yeah, because I told you!"

"You did, but not the details! John, that kid was gonna _die_. And you saved him, didn't you?" she said, still standing in front of the door.

"Yeah. Yeah, he was," I conceded. "Who said that?"

"Hank did. He called the line in the common room, and asked if someone could find a spare room for the new guy – Charlie, his name is. He has multiple fractures in one of his arms. He's coming here as soon as they fix him up. And yeah, John. They told me that he would've died if it weren't for you."

I just looked at her. "And?"

"And they're really proud of you. And actually, so am I."

Well, it was better than having them feel sorry for me. "All right, all right, I'm proud of me, too," I said, and leaned back in my chair. I was staring out my window, at some kids who were shooting hoops outside, and hadn't looked at Kitty since she'd come in the room.

"Mind if I sit?" she asked.

"Go ahead. But I'm not planning on entertaining you," I answered.

"What, don't have anything to do?" she teased. "What _have_ you been up to lately?"

"Well, yesterday, I had high tea with the royal English family in the morning, and then decided to boogie-board my way back across the ocean. I shot a few wild antelope in the woods back there –" I pointed at the tree line beyond the basketball court – "smoked the meat for venison, and packed it away for the winter. Then I heard we had a bit of Indian trouble in the Danger Room so I went on the warpath and by the time that was done, it was time to cook dinner."

Kitty held a steady grin on her face without saying anything, and raised her eyebrows at me.

I gave in to her. "Now that I think about it, that must have been somebody else. _I_ sat around and twiddled my thumbs. But I guess I did cook dinner."

She finally broke and gave me a little laugh and a crooked smile. "John, do you just stay in your room all day?"

"Mostly. Either that or the kitchen. Sometimes the common room," I said.

"Why aren't you going outside?" she asked. It was a question I'd been asking myself lately, too.

I looked out the window again, and just said, "I don't know." I wasn't going to tell her that I thought I did know, though. I wasn't sure. Maybe I was just punishing myself for what I'd done. But nothing I did really shook away that feeling of just being _ashamed_ when I sat at the front of the court room during my trial. Maybe one of these days I'd forget it, but it would be awhile before that happened. Or maybe I was just trying to be inconspicuous.

"You should try stepping outside. Get some fresh air," she prodded.

"I would kind of like to," I admitted. "Got a lot of stuff to think about," I told her.

"So do it!" she said. "Listen, I'll leave you alone. But you should really do it – you know, for yourself. Just get out of the building a little bit."

"Yeah."

"I'll see you later, then," she said, and got up and phased back out of the door.

I gazed out of the window again. It would be nice. I glanced at the anklet that was chaining me to this campus, and figured it couldn't hurt. I was, actually, allowed outdoors on the campus grounds. Xavier had owned a lot of land, and the school campus was fairly large. The state was allowing me on the surrounding areas of the school, but I hadn't taken advantage of that privilege yet.

I decided to spend a lot of time outside today. I passed the kids who had been playing basketball, and even tossed the ball back to one of them when it had rolled away. I wasn't exactly sure where my boundaries were, but the red light on my anklet would warn me when I was within five feet. I planned to walk in a circle around the school getting as close to the boundary as I could.

I took my time, so when I got back to my starting point, twenty minutes had passed and I was standing behind the school building. I stared at the huge structure, and suddenly decided to climb up to the roof. I'd know every inch of my confinement by the time I was out of here. What else was left for me to do?

I wondered if there was a way for me to get to the roof from the outside, but couldn't see one so I went back inside and just took the stairs. By the time I reached the roof, the sunlight hit my eyes, so at first I almost didn't see the other mutant sitting on the roof.

"Hey," he said.

"Bird-boy," I replied.

"Yup," Warren said, good-naturedly.

"What are you doing up here?" I asked.

"Thinking. You?"

I laughed softly. "I guess me too." I sat down next to him.

The two of us both heaved a sigh in unison, which made us give each other a look. We spent the next few minutes just looking over the city. Xavier's school wasn't in the middle of a crowded city, of course – there wasn't the room – but it was close to one. It was a pretty sight.

I don't know why I felt I had to say it, but I broke the silence by saying, "You mad at me?"

Warren turned to look at me, a curious expression on his face, and ruffled a wing. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Well… I am the one who… you know. Destroyed one of your father's labs." I hesitated a little before I spoke again. "With some people in it." Did he not know it was me?

"Ah, yes," he said, sounding cryptic. "No, John, I'm not mad. I forgive you."

Wow, that was quick. And I hadn't even asked for it. "Why?" I asked warily.

"Why what? Why am I not mad, or why do I forgive you?"

"Both. Definitely."

"Well… I guess it's kind of circular logic. I forgive you, so I can't really be mad anymore because of that. And I guess I forgive you because I believe you'll be sorry about it someday, if you aren't already."

"Yeah, you think?" I said, not giving anything away.

"Yeah, I do. I mean – I'm not going to lie to you, it wouldn't be this easy for me to say this had my own father, or someone else I cared about, been in there. I'd want to try, but it wouldn't be easy. But I didn't know any of those people. It's awful they died, yeah, but, here's a chance for me to try to be forgiving because it's easier since I didn't know them."

I nodded. I sort of understood. I almost wished I had that kindness in me, but I knew I wasn't that sort of person.

I guessed Warren was, until he spoke again and said, "Obviously that's something I'm trying to work on."

I heard Charlie's mother's voice in my head, "Please take care of my little boy!" and pictured his mangled body. Then that body become the body one of the people who had been in the lab I'd torched, and the worried, anxious voice was _their_ mother's voice.

"In fact, Warren… I am sorry," I told him.

"You really are?" he said.

"I really am."

He just smiled at me.

We sat in some more silence, until Warren gave a satisfied-sounding "Hmmm!" and leaned back, the wind whipping back his feathers. He said with a wide smile, "Feels good, doesn't it?"

"The breeze?" I said, not wishing to get into a philosophical conversation with a guy I hardly knew.

"Yeah, yeah – the breeze," he said, even though it wasn't what he meant. But he continued, "And letting go. If you're really sorry about what you did, dude… one of these days it's going to leave you. Won't bother you so much. I'm glad we talked, too."

He was a really easy-going guy. It was nice being on the roof and sitting with someone who didn't feel sorry for me or was afraid of me. Or just plain hated me. "Yeah, I am too," I told him. "Actually – it feels pretty good to clear the air."

He nodded, and said "Ever have stuff just work out so well you wish you could fly? Just jump up and soar away?" Warren grinned, and after a pause he said, "And the cool thing is – I can actually _do_ it. I can just… fly." He waved his palm in the air.

I laughed and shook my head at him, about to call him nuts, but then I remembered something. As I was circling the mansion earlier I'd seen him and Betsy, one of the other students here, looking pretty close. I knew what he was talking about.

Warren looked like he was about to jump for joy and just take off right there, but suddenly pointed at the gated entrance to the school.  
"Look, they must be back with that kid!"

He was right. I peered over the roof and saw our staff members unload a wheelchair from the back of the ambulance that had taken them to the hospital, and help Charlie into it. He had a cast on his arm, and was still bandaged up but was looking a lot better.

"Want to go see what's up?" I said to Warren. He gave me a nod, and I started for the stairs but barely even got started before – "WHOA! Hey! This is – _don't drop me_!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 8: "What can you do, Charlie?"**

"Who needs stairs when you've got me?" Warren said smugly, carrying me by the arms.

"Good _God_, you overgrown chicken! You nearly gave me a heart attack," I said in half-mock anger, as Warren, who had swooped down from the mansion's roof with me, dropped me on the lawn.

"I always thought these were more swan-like, myself," Warren said, extending both his left arm and wing.

"Overgrown pigeon, then," I said, crossing my arms.

"Ugh. Pigeons. Rats of the skies," he said with a disgusted look on his face.

"Rats of the skies?" I repeated incredulously. "Wouldn't that be more like… crows? Or something?"

"Hey," he said, pointing a finger and ruffling a wing at me. "Don't even get me started on crows."

I couldn't anyway, even though I was about to, because our banter was interrupted by the approaching parade from the ambulance.

"Hello, boys," said Storm.

"Hey, kids," said Wolverine.

"This is John, and this is Warren," Storm said, and I noticed that a woman with brown-blonde hair was also there. "This is Mrs. Shields, and of course, Charlie." Charlie, who was in the wheelchair, waved. He was looking a _lot_ better, and without him screaming his head off with blood everywhere, I noticed he sported a pair of rather bushy eyebrows for a kid.

We all said our hellos, and as we approached the mansion, Charlie's mother gasped, and said, "_This_ is an amazing-looking place. You know, I think I may have driven by here once or twice, but I've never seen it this close before. It's beautiful."

"It was Professor Xavier's pride and joy, but not before his students…" Storm began, and the two of them started talking about the school. She'd probably give them both the whole official tour and all later. I idly followed the group from behind, hoping to find out more about what had happened. What was I going to do, go back my room, and then wait a few days to read about it in the paper?

The adults had stopped in the large downstairs common room, which looked more like a living room. "As for Charlie's attendance at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, we can further discuss your possibilities either here, or I can show you the headmaster's office, whichever you're more comfortable with," Storm was saying. Then aside to Wolverine, she said, "Logan, will you go on ahead to that meeting room upstairs?" He nodded, and ran up the stairs.

I hovered above the conversation for a few minutes, wondering if I should leave. Storm was explaining that while Hank McCoy wasn't officially on the school's staff, he had been a large part of founding it and knew about the way it worked. Hank took Mrs. Shields to the office when Storm told them that she wanted to talk to Charlie himself. Then she looked at me and said, "John, would you mind joining us for a few minutes? We'd like to discuss a few options with you as well."

I didn't have too many clues as to what she was talking about, but I had a few guesses. Every so often Storm would try to talk to me about community service, which the state was stupidly requiring for my sentence, even though I couldn't leave the house to do it. "Sure," I said, and sat in an empty armchair.

Before Storm said anything to me, though, Charlie spoke first and looked me straight in the eye. "I owe you, big guy," he said to me. "I owe you my _life_. Thanks for what you did."

I shrugged. I wasn't used to gratitude being directed at me, and certainly didn't really know how to respond to something like that, so I just simply said, "You're welcome," a little stiffly. I was glad to have helped him, but I wasn't about to be hailed as a hero and still be a prisoner at the same time. Just felt weird somehow.

Storm said, "John, we've talked over some possibilities for your community service. Charlie and I had a chance to talk at the hospital, and while I haven't run this by anyone with the rehabilitation program yet, I have something in mind for you."

"Oh yeah?" I said challengingly. "Is it something I'm going to be able to be able to get done and over with fast?"

"Not necessarily," Storm said. Her tone was forceful. I could tell she'd made up her mind about something. "Charlie may be facing some criminal charges, but he will probably just have to go through all of the red tape and bureaucracies before they let him go. I'd like for you to help set up a program at the school that will help kids like Charlie, people who have been victims of discrimination far more than usual."

And… that meant… doing what, exactly? "Okay…" I said slowly. "So… what is it that you're telling me to do?" I'd been flicking my lighter open and closed this whole time – which I patted myself on the back for remembering to bring back from the infirmary – and Storm looked at it disdainfully. I wondered if she'd talk to Wolverine about the fact that he'd given it back to me.

"I'm not exactly _telling_ you to do anything right now, John, but you do realize that you will not be eligible for parole if you don't have anything to show for involvement in community service, don't you? I'm trying to help you." She looked exasperated, but so was I. Yeah, I wanted to get out of here, but I vaguely felt like this hadn't been part of the deal. They had told me about this catch a day after I was given my sentence. Probably because mine had been a special case that needed some details worked out, but still. I was annoyed.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. So all right then, what's this going to be about?"

"It will be a form of rehabilitation, but a little different from yours, of course. It will be about adjustment to a way of life that involves the philosophy of this school – Xavier's philosophy – which is peaceful coexistence with humans. It will be extremely difficult for people who have been exposed to discrimination already."

I was incensed.

"How _exactly_ do you plan for me to be involved with such a thing when, let me check, _I don't believe in it_?"

She must have been ready for me to ask something like that. "Because I am in charge of _your_ rehabilitation as well. You are a resident of Xavier's School, and you are expected to respect it, if not follow its ideals. When you leave these grounds, I can't do a thing about what you want to do with your life, but it's up to me and everyone else here to make sure that you don't ignore this way of life while you reside here. You may not agree with us that reintegrating these ideas into you is for your best, but yes, it _is_ in fact a requirement that you are a helping hand while you're here."

It sounded like a very long-winded version of, "As long as you're living under my roof, you'll follow my rules."

Whatever. I was used to that. My father, Magneto, now Storm – I'd never see the end of it, so I just resigned myself to it. I was still angry – at her, at the state and their idiotic rehabilitation program, at Xavier – but I fought with the idea in my head until I decided that, yeah, I wanted out of here more than I wanted to stand up for my principles. After that I could do all the standing around I wanted, _minus_ metal anklet. I seethed in my fluffy armchair.

I glanced at Charlie. He had shrank back in his wheelchair, looking uncomfortable and like he wanted to pretend he hadn't really been listening to us. "So," I said. "Guess you're my first victim, huh?"

He grinned. "Hey, I'm alive. It's all that matters to me right now."

"So, Storm, what happened, anyway? And you're not going to leave me to figure this out on my own – I don't even know exactly what you want me to do with this… program, or whatever it is," I said.

Charlie's face darkened, and said, "Yeah, it's not a pretty story."

Storm looked at him, and said quietly, "John doesn't have to know for now if you don't want him to."

Charlie replied, "You saved me, man. Hey, I know I don't know you too well yet, but you're way up there in my book already." He looked at Storm and said, "It's okay with me," and continued, "I was in the city today, and some… some bigots just started trash-talking with me and I was by myself, so I tried to talk my way out of it but they wouldn't let me." He paused. "My mom knows I'm a mutant. She's not, but she's friends with some other mutants too. So she's never been _too_ secretive about it, and I guess word gets around, so these creeps from the Friends of Humanity knew… that's where those guys were from." I nodded.

"So I was trying to leave, and then one of them grabbed me and started beating me up. They all did. They just started picking up things like rocks and trash or whatever and it got pretty bad… the leader of that little group was the one who stepped on my arm," he said, indicating his cast. I just listened, transfixed. Did stuff like this really manage to get this out of hand right out there in the street?

"Yeah… so… I tried to run. It turns out that there were more of them. You know, some of the Friends of Humanity people had hoods over their heads, but some completely random people off the street started helping them, too! There were a _lot_ of people pretty soon, and I was just… on the bottom of a dogpile for a few minutes. I wanted to use my powers, but… I just couldn't. I couldn't do that."

I was entirely curious now. "What can you do, Charlie?" I said.

"I teleport," he said simply.

"Wait, then why couldn't you –" I started to say, but Charlie continued.

"I can't teleport just myself. Believe me, I've tried loads of times. But no matter what I do, I _have_ to switch with someone. So I guess I'm not really a teleporter. I'm… a switcher. I can switch physical positions with anyone, or I can teleport to a location that I want to go to, but I'll just sort of unconsciously switch with the person nearest to that place. I don't always know who it's going to be."

I let out a low whistle. "Interesting."

"If I'd switched with anyone they would've started getting the beating," he explained. What a kid. I bet if I had his power I would've switched with anyone I could think of. I had no one to care about, really.

"Couldn't you have just switched with one of them?"

"I guess, but, look, I was panicked, and getting beat senseless, and all I wanted was to get away. I just didn't even think of it then."

So, his power was kind of like Nightcrawler's, except – "It was _you_!" I exclaimed.

"Huh?" he said.

"You! _You_ switched with Wolverine!" Storm nodded at me.

"Heh, oh yeah," he said a little sheepishly. "That was me. I didn't do it on purpose. I told you, I don't always know who I'm going to switch with. I can't really remember… I think I was trying to get to somewhere near this school, but my power just randomly picked a person close to it, I guess. That's why I tried to switch back as soon as I could. I can usually figure out how to switch with a person I'd switched with immediately before, so I can return them to wherever they were."

Storm and I both nodded. It sounded kind of reasonable, given the fact that mutant powers weren't always all that predictable. Then I remembered how convinced Wolverine had been that Professor Xavier had been trying to reach out to him. "Does Wolverine know?"

Storm shook her head sadly. "He was giving blood while Charlie and I were talking. I will tell him soon."

"I see," I said. "So then what happened?"

"Ah… yeah," Charlie continued. "So then I managed to crawl out, and I thought I could get away by climbing on a roof. I climbed up a fire escape, but there one of them followed me. This guy had a knife. He was the one that gave me… you know, the cut that you closed up for me." He looked at me with what I deduced was a grateful expression.

Then, even though he had lowered his head, I could tell that tears were starting to form in his eyes. "He was about to stab me in the heart. I pushed him away, but he was still right there, of course." Charlie was a fairly big guy. I could see how he could do that.

He leaned his head into his good, unbroken hand and sobbed softly, "Then I threw myself off that twenty-story roof."

My jaw must have dropped. "And switched with him," I finished for him.

The tears were definitely falling now, and Charlie nodded, but my eyes widened and I had to admit to feeling pretty impressed. That sounded pretty gutsy. I liked his style, even though he was weeping about it now.

Charlie shook his head violently and repeated the phrase he'd used in the school infirmary. "I didn't mean to. But he wanted to _kill_ me." Storm laid a reassuring hand on his.

I wasn't sure if I could tell him what I _really_ thought of what he did. I glanced at Storm, and picked my words carefully. "Well, Charlie… I'm not going to tell you that you did the right thing. But hell, man, you stood up for yourself, is what you did. Can't let someone just kill you in cold blood like that. I mean, _he_ was gonna kill _you_." Uh-oh. I'd started rambling.

But Storm didn't make a move to stop me. Then again, she was angry too. I could tell, because she changed the subject. "John, we have a place for you to work. There's a room upstairs that used to be a meeting room, and it needs some cleaning up first, but it will serve the job."

"Of course," she added quickly, "we don't expect you to do it alone. We do want you to help with the clean up, but there will be lots of people working on the room, as well as helping you with the mutant rehabilitation."

I was leaning forward in my seat with my arms resting on my knees, and nodded. I got up, and said, "I'll check it out, then."

Storm seemed satisfied with this, and got up as well. "Charlie, would you like to catch up with your mother?"

"Yeah, great," he said, wiping away the last of his tears, and shakily started standing up.

"Hey, you don't need that thing?" I said, pointing to the wheelchair.

"Nah. Not really," he said. "They just made me leave the hospital in it, so that I wouldn't, you know, fall over and sue for a billion dollars or whatever." I wondered if he was just faking his light attitude, or if he really was just like that. If it were the latter, he'd be a pretty good pick to start off with – I wouldn't have to do as much as I would have to with a kid who was out for bloodthirsty revenge.

I actually knew which room Storm had been talking about, but I hadn't been in it. There was a room that was closed off upstairs, so that had to be it. When I got there, the door was wide open and I slowed my pace as I stepped inside.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed when I saw the room. "_Some_ cleaning up! You gotta be kidding me. That's what Storm said!" I said to Wolverine, who had just put down some pieces of lumber to direct Colossus. The entire room was covered in dirt, and wooden boards everywhere. One of the walls looked like it was barely being supported, as I could see the beams that were inside it. The area around the hole had peeling wallpaper and pretty much all of the walls were cracked. Some of the older students, Bobby, Rogue, Jubilee, and Betsy included, were sweeping or clearing away boards. I noticed that there was a broken window as well, and as I stepped a little further into the room I left a _footprint_ behind.

"What the hell happened in here?" I asked Bobby, who was standing the closest to me.

He gave me a glare, but answered me. "Freak optic blast accident. You don't even wanna know." I stared at him. He looked like he was trying to hide a smile.

I rolled my eyes. At least the jackass was talking to me, but now he was just making dumb jokes. "Logan! Hey, Logan?" Logan, who was standing with Colossus, finished loading some boards into Colossus's arms, and grabbed a load for himself. He was pretty engrossed in a conversation with Colossus, too much to have overheard my exchange with Bobby. "Logan?" He turned around to look at me.

"Yeah," he said.

"What the hell happened here?" I repeated.

He said through the cigar between his teeth, "Freak optic blast accident. Ask Bobby. He knows more of the details than I do."

I let out an exasperated scoff, and picked up some boards.

There was a dolly in the hallway that was being used by those of us who hadn't been blessed with Tinhead's powers, so I loaded the boards onto it. I didn't exactly mind, though – I was generally okay with the way I was built, even though I guessed I could use being a little bigger. The look worked for Colossus, but just a little bigger for me would be nice. Warren approached me, and said, "Hey. They got stuff I can help out with in here?"

I snorted. "Probably. It's a disaster area."

"Okay," he said, and started to walk through the door, but bumped his wings into the doorframe. I unfortunately hadn't noticed this until he started backing out of the doorway and turning around, hitting me full in the face with one of his monstrous wings.

"Hey, _watch_ it, Bird-boy!" I hollered.

"Sorry!" Warren protested, scuttling through the doorway sideways.

I just shook my head. I then started doing more picking up, and was just getting into a rhythm of cleaning when I wondered where Kitty was. Almost everyone else our age was helping out with the clean up in the meeting room, except her. Not that I minded her not being there, I was just curious.

* * *

**Author's note specifically for this chapter:** I'm not a fan of making original characters for fanfics, but I searched high and low for a Marvel mutant with these particular powers and found none, so this is what I ended up doing. Hope you guys don't mind. Any feedback you have would be great! 


	9. Chapter 9

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 9: "That's why I'm the puppet."**

The next morning, I rolled out of bed. Really. "Ugh, damn it," I said, rubbing the spot on my head that I'd knocked on the floor. That day I had another appointment with Amelia Voght, and I'd been sleeping in as usual all the mornings in between. Getting up early was not a strong suit of mine.

"So, I hear Potential Boy's been making some real progress doing some damage control!" Amelia said brightly. I couldn't tell if there was a hint of sarcasm or not, since she usually spoke with a pretty dry tone.

I'd already planned out our meeting the night before. She had to keep in pretty good contact with the adults at the school due to my counseling, so she'd be up to date. She'd ask about the way I'd saved Charlie, and the rehabilitation program I had to do for community service, and I was going to be the model criminal with her again so she'd have nothing but nice, clean reports to hand to whoever she was working for.

"Oh, yeah. If you're talking about the castler," I said.

"What?" she said, puzzled.

Oh. I'd said that out loud. "Yeeeah…" I said. "You know, that kid Charlie?"

"Of course, Storm told me all about him," Amelia said. "What did you call him?"

Last night, Charlie's power had made me think. I was reminded of the time that Magneto taught me how to play chess. I _did_ know how to play, but I never really got a chance to as a kid, so he was helping me brush up on the rules. He always liked to make a lot of chess analogies and it bugged me a little bit that I didn't really know how to play. Especially since he made it seem like such an intelligent game and was all aloof about it. If it weren't so immature to do so, he may have said something like, "I know how to play and you don't!" So I'd asked him to teach me. And after a couple of games, I thought I'd almost had him in check, until he did a weird move with two of his pieces.

"Hey! Are you cheating?" I'd accused him. Mystique laughed.

"My, my, do you believe that I would resort to cheating to defeat you?" Magneto chuckled.

"Well, then what did you just do?"

"This, son, is called _castling_. One must not have moved either the king or rook, and there must be no pieces between them. Then the player may move the king two squares to the rook, and the rook goes on the opposite side."

It looked like he'd made it up, so I glanced at Mystique, who looked up from her book and nodded at me. "Hard to tell with him sometimes, isn't it?" she said sympathetically. I shrugged and kept playing. The man obviously didn't believe in going easy on anyone, so I lost, of course, but it had been fun. I mean, my dad certainly never played board games with me.

At any rate, Charlie's mutant power wasn't like castling – not exactly – but in my head it was similar enough. The king and rook in chess don't go to the spot the other had been, but they do sort of switch positions, and I related Charlie's form of teleportation to it.

"Oh, well, I sort of thought that Charlie's teleporting was sort of like the way you can castle in chess," I explained to Amelia. "It's like it except that in chess they don't go in the exact spot the other piece was in."

"Ahhh, cute," she said.

"Not really, it's just kind of dumb," I said, resenting the use of the word "cute."

"No, hey, don't say that about yourself," Amelia prodded.

"Whatever," I sighed, looking heavenward.

We talked some more about a variety of things, and Amelia was happy with the way I'd been spending more time out of my room. Then, of course, she said, "And how are you feeling about the rehabilitation program you're meant to help with?"

I mustered what I hoped was a believable amount of enthusiasm, and so it began. I was really excited that I was going to be meeting new people. I was so grateful to the X-Men and the other students who were helping me clean out the old, battered room that had taken a lot of Cyclops's abuse, accidental or not. I was extremely impressed by the way the bust-open wall hadn't collapsed yet, without crushing Jubilee to death, whose room was directly below the old meeting hall. And I loved the vacuum-deprived floor covered in so much dirt that if someone spilled some seeds, we would have a garden the following spring.

Amelia raised an eyebrow at me and said, "You know, I'm good enough at sarcasm myself to be able to detect it. And by the way, they used to have the greenhouse right above that room. That's where all that dirt came from."

"Ah. One mystery solved. Now onto why Jubilee hasn't been crushed yet." _Click_, went my lighter.

Amelia buried her face in her hands to stifle her laughter. "You're horrible!" she said, but she was laughing. "John, it's _not that bad_. You could be in jail right now," she reminded me.

"Yeah, but at least there I wouldn't have that inkling of hope that I could get out of there. Here I'm nothing but the puppet of the school staff members and the attorney general and the Secretary of Mutant Affairs himself, and all kinds of high-up-there politician-bureaucrat figures and the judicial system of the State of New York. A puppet, I tell you. They just stick their hand up my butt and I do what they say," I burst.

Amelia was looking like she was trying very hard not to laugh. "You're not telling me you'd rather trade _that_ –" she pointed at my anklet "-for jail?"

I gave a heavy sigh, and said, "That's why I'm the puppet."

After the session, which went fairly well, I thought, I had to go back up to that very room so that I could help finish the job. Amelia had gone to talk to Storm about the program they were trying to set up, and would be back later. Most of the clean up was done, and now we had to start on reconstruction. I strode over to the open wall and admired it. "This is a structural nightmare," I declared loudly.

"Oh, yeah? And what do _you_ know about architecture?" Bobby demanded.

"Nothing," I admitted. "I'm just going by the fact that the beams are visible." Apparently since there was nothing he could do about my being here, he had resorted to picking little fights with me here and there.

We worked mostly in silence for the next hour or so, except to receive instructions from Wolverine, who actually had to go find out for himself how some of the reconstruction how to be done. I figured he was more familiar with destruction, anyway, so this didn't surprise me too much.

By the time I'd arrived, all the stuff that had been on the floor – the broken boards, dirt, glass – had been swept and cleared out. So we worked on strengthening the cracked walls and started filling in the open wall. We finished for the day when we'd done all we could, since we had to wait for some more materials to arrive. But Wolverine told us that the room would probably be done in only a couple more days.

Bobby and Warren were hauling an old desk, presumably from the basement, up the stairs, when Colossus stepped in, saying, "Let me take care of that," and picked it right out of their hands. A few other assorted pieces of furniture were also brought in, and Storm and Amelia arrived soon afterwards to talk to me about the rehabilitation program. It turned out that, contrary to what I thought before, I wasn't expected to exactly _run_ this program, just participate in it. This suited me a lot better, but I thought it made it sounded a bit more like it was going to be Storm's little pet project or something.

I pulled a chair over and sat in it with my feet on the desk. I told Storm, "So, basically, you want me to make you little X-Men. Miraculously transform angry, abused kids into passive, happy humanitarians like you people."

I could tell I was trying her patience when she held her breath for a second and heaved a sigh, saying, "John, this is not an impossible job. It's going to be rewarding. You'll see. You'll be able to experience more of the world even from the inside of this building by working with different kinds of people."

I grumbled and tried to end the conversation with, "The world is not the same thing as the inside of a mini-X-Men factory."

Warren hopped on the desk I was sitting at and said, "Boy, whoever said life was a picnic must've gotten the ideas for rain and ants from _you_."

"Why, thank you."

Kitty had also been there helping with the rebuilding that morning. She only said a quick hello to me when I'd arrived, and when everyone finished she scurried back to her room. Probably to study. Or play on her computer, or whatever it was she did. I, on the other hand, spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen, even though I wasn't making any food. I guess it was really the only place in the mansion outside of my room that I felt fairly comfortable in, and Time For Dinner was usually watching some sports game in the room right across from it. Soccer and rugby had been pretty much the things to do when I was a kid growing up in Australia, so I didn't care too much for the baseball that Time For Dinner was usually tuned to, but hey, I'm a guy. I'll watch sports if it's on.

The game ended and Time For Dinner left, and I started thinking about how I really didn't know that kid very well. I guessed that was why I still didn't like to join her while she was there. I usually just eyed the TV from the kitchen island. I never even talked to her, really. But I _had_ talked to Kitty lately, probably more than any of the other kids except for Warren, who I wasn't sure counted because he talked to everybody. Especially now that he'd gotten over some of his shyness – not to mention, awkwardness that his father had invented the cure. Probably because he was too preoccupied with Betsy to care what people thought anymore.

At any rate, at least Kitty didn't seem to be afraid of me, and she wasn't dropping all kinds of hints that I should be eating my meals in Chez Correctional Facility instead of taking up so much room in the kitchen… well, actually, Bobby had only said that _once_, but that really ground my nerves, and I nearly slapped him with the frying pan I'd been holding. The flame under the pan was rumbling, too, but I would have preferred just giving him a blow to the head. I could swear that red light on my anklet starts beeping every time I want to beat him up, but that's just me being paranoid. I can't believe I managed to stay calm, though, and even though I wanted to tear his head off, I smirked at him. I'd just told him, "Ha! You'd be _begging_ me to stay here if you'd had a taste of my apple pie last night – except I wouldn't have let you had any even if Tinhead hadn't eaten all of it." Bobby just gave me a disgusted look at the thought of begging me to do _anything_, and took his food and left.

That had been a couple of days ago. Today, I'd been in the kitchen all morning and hadn't seen anyone come in or out. I knew that some people had gone out to eat, but I was pretty sure Kitty hadn't left with them. Maybe I should make her something. Then again, maybe not. She'd probably just think I was being weirdly cheeky or something.

Before I knew it, I was making cheeseburgers, scolding myself the whole way. _She's going to think you poisoned it or something, Pyro!_ I said to myself. To which I responded, _Oh, shut up. So what if I want some company?_ And then, _I really have to stop talking to myself. See, this is why I need someone else to talk to!_ Then I wondered, _What if she didn't like burgers?_ Wait. Everybody had to like burgers. Didn't they?

I knocked, and Kitty was in her room. She said, "Come in," without even asking who it was – then again, maybe it's just antisocial jerks like me who ask, and then say, "Stay the hell out!" depending on who it is. Nah. I couldn't see Kitty being an antisocial jerk.

"Hey, Kitty-cat, you had lunch yet?" I said, leaning into the room without walking in.

"No, not yet," she said, ignoring the pet name. She was concentrating on something on her computer.

"I made you some food," I said, trying to sound casual.

That made her look at me. "No, you didn't!"

"What? Yeah, I did! What did you think I was going to do, take you down to the kitchen and say, _Ha-ha, no food!_" I replied.

She laughed weakly and said, "No, I just mean – really? I can't believe that you did."

"So, come and see for yourself. Aren't you hungry?"

"I guess so… I just had a lot of things to do today," she said, turning back to her computer.

"Can't you forget that thing for a few minutes?" I said.

She looked at me reproachfully, and then softened her expression. "It could wait, I guess," she said, and then added, "Let me just save this first."

She did, and then followed me down to the kitchen. "You've really been getting into this, haven't you?"

"What, making food? Cooking keeps me busy," I said, not about to admit I'd been enjoying it.

"You made cheeseburgers?" she said, approaching the stove.

"You don't… like burgers?" I said disbelievingly. Damn it! Everybody liked burgers! I'd screwed up.

"No, I like them, I just can't eat cheeseburgers," she said.

"Why not?"

"It's the meat and cheese. Meat with dairy isn't kosher," she explained.

Ohhh. "You're Jewish?"

"Yeah. You didn't know?" she replied playfully.

"Nope…" I said, turning to the stove. "Didn't know. Maybe because your last name's not Cohen."

"Hey!" she cried disapprovingly. When I turned around I saw that she was smiling crookedly, teasing me. She waved a finger at me and said, "You know that I would so chastise you for that comment, except that my parents are friends with approximately three different Cohens? No relation, of course."

"Sorry," I said. "I'll give it to that… that freak who eats everything," I said, throwing my hand in the air.  
Kitty burst out laughing, and I had to laugh with her. I don't think I've ever made her laugh like that before, nothing beyond her little crooked smile. I hadn't said anything witty or clever, just dumb, but even so, I'd made her laugh.

"You know, that's not the only thing she does," Kitty said.

Obviously there was no question who I was talking about. "That Time For Dinner kid," I said. "She eats everything. That's about all I know."

"You should get to know some people better while you're here, John," Kitty said, suddenly a touch more serious.

"Nah, probably not. I'll just settle for minding my own business," I said. "Here," I added, handing her a new, cheese-free burger.

She looked genuinely surprised. "For me?" she said.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Yes, you! And I wasn't even supposed to have any food at all down here, too, remember?"

"Aw, thanks a lot, John. That's so considerate of you," she said with a smile.

"I'm not considerate of others. I had too much food anyway, and it's not like I made it for you," I said, in a failed attempt at feigned annoyance.

"Yeah, whatever," she said.

"What about everything else? Is it okay for you to eat?" I asked.

"Well, it doesn't matter, if you didn't really make it for me anyway," she joked, but she grabbed the package the meat had come from, and showed it to me. "This little circled U means kosher," she said. It was tiny.

I peered at it. "I hadn't even noticed that," I told her. "Actually, I think I've seen them before, but I always thought they were something like that registered trademark letter."

"Nope. Oh, and sometimes it's a circled K," she added.

We ate in silence the way we had the last time, and I realized I had a lot to learn. I guess there were a lot of things I didn't know about Kitty. She didn't know a whole lot about me either, which was probably a big part of why she was bothering to talk to me. Maybe if we talked more, I'd leave out the parts about all the people I'd hurt, even before I'd joined Magneto.

"So, where're you from?" I said, breaking the silence.

"Chicago. Well, I lived in a suburb outside of Chicago, in Deerfield," she answered.

"Hey, kind of like me," I said casually. "I lived in a suburb called Fairfield outside of Sydney."

"Sydney… Australia?" she said, looking up at me.

"Ooh, Kitty-cat knows her geography!" I said.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Again, you're eating my food," I pointed out.

"You don't sound Australian at all," she said.

"That's right, I don't," I said, hoping to leave it a mystery. She didn't need to know about my leaving home a few times before leaving for good, all the while trying so hard to lose the accent.

We were able to talk for a few more minutes, and she stuck around even after we'd finished eating. I was vaguely annoyed, though, when Charlie wandered into the kitchen, interrupting a story that Kitty had been telling about her family.

"Hey, John. Hey, Kitty," he said.

"You guys met?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah – I was helping him set up his room the other day," Kitty explained. So that's where she'd been.

Charlie nodded, and said, "Hey, John? Do you know where I can find Storm? I don't know where she is, and, well, I don't really know anyone else too well yet."

"Haven't seen her since I was upstairs. She might still be there," I said. "Why?"

"Ah. Things have been kind of… hectic. There's something important that I probably should have mentioned earlier, but, well, after the attack it's been hospital, pack up, move in, and all that kind of stuff and I forgot," he said with a concerned look on his face.

"Well? What is it?" I demanded.

"Right before the attack got really bad, one of the leaders of the group of people mentioned that there's going to be another, bigger attack by the Friends of Humanity. I don't know where."

Kitty gasped. I goggled at him. "And why aren't you telling someone about this _now_! Someone who can actually do something about it? It could be _here_!"


	10. Chapter 10

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "sleepall-day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame, around PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 10: "This could actually work!"**

"Oh, my God!" Kitty exclaimed, and without another word, she jumped onto the kitchen island and leaped right through the ceiling. Sure, I'd seen her phase loads of times before, but I had to gape at _that_ one. Charlie was even more astounded than I was.

"Come on, let's get upstairs, too," I said to him. He hobbled along after me, but kept pace fairly well.

Storm wasn't in the old meeting hall anymore, but I could hear Kitty talking to her down the hall, so Charlie and I found them right away. They were in the office that I always used for my counseling with Amelia. I guess Kitty had already relayed the message, because when Storm saw us approaching, she said to Charlie, "What _exactly_ did you hear them say?"

"Just that they were planning another attack. They were telling it to me, actually, I didn't just overhear it, so I guess they weren't afraid of some of us finding out about it. I don't remember the exact phrase, but one of the guys that seemed like he was a leader – he said something like, 'You muties better watch out – watch out for another attack. And next time it's going to be bigger, a lot bigger, and sooner than you think.' Something along those lines. So, there weren't any specifics," Charlie replied.

Wolverine was also standing nearby. Storm asked him, "Is there any way we can monitor any of their activities?"

"Probably. What're you lookin' at me for?" he answered gruffly. "I don't do _spy_ work. I'd like to skewer a couple of them right now," he added, and with a _snikt!_ extended his claws on one hand. I hadn't been there when Storm told him about Charlie's mutant power – but I know that it had really shaken him up and he was pretty upset about it. I figured he'd be mad enough about the news that the Friends of Humanity were planning another attack, but he'd been kind of on edge lately. I think he was genuinely distraught that it had been Charlie who'd teleported him.

Storm was shaking her head quickly, like she was trying to clear her thoughts. "No, no, Logan – we _have_ to think this through. We have to find out where this attack is before it happens! If it really is going to be on a larger scale than what they did to Charlie – we have to prevent them, not try to stop them during it!"

I thought she was right, but didn't say anything. Like they'd seriously listen to their resident convict.

"And just how do you think we'll do that?" Wolverine said. "I say we go grab any known members we can – startin' with that son of a bitch Graydon Creed – and I'll slice some answers outta them."

I wasn't sure if he really thought that was the best thing to do, or if he was just talking… but of course, with him, you could never quite tell.

Storm sighed, and pulled over a chair to sit in. Wolverine was pacing, but the rest of us found some seats, too. Storm said a little quietly, like she was just thinking out loud, "We need to find one of them to question, but we can't just go after them… that would make _us_ the criminals…"

"Says who?" Wolverine exclaimed. "Wouldn't we be doing the right thing, by stoppin' an attack?" He wiped at his forehead even though it was cool inside the mansion – outdoors was another story, though.

"Not without proof," I put in. He kind of glared at me, but didn't say anything because I was right.

Kitty raised the question, "So how do we get the proof?"

Without breaking her gaze into empty space, Storm said, "I'm thinking." I wondered if Storm and Wolverine would normally be letting us kids listen in on a conversation like this, much less participate in it, if they weren't so obviously preoccupied with panic.

I decided to take advantage of the situation and asked, "Did anybody think of the possibility that it could be the _school_? Charlie was in this area, wasn't he? I mean, there's not exactly much bustling mutant activity going on in Westchester except here."

"Who said we hadn't thought of that possibility?" Storm snapped, and then said to the others, "It _could_ be the school!"

I scoffed. "Yeah. That's what I said."

"Yes, you were right, but we can't ignore any other possible locations," she replied.

Storm furrowed her brow in concentration. I started flicking my lighter open and closed again, and she frowned at me and took it away from me, like I was still one of her students. I just pulled out another plastic one from my pocket and started playing with that one. I nervously sat back and desperately hoped that I'd be reading about the attack in the paper instead of running away from it.

Wait. The paper.

I stood up to get everyone's attention. "We can draw some of the Friends of Humanity members somewhere where we'll be ready to grab them."

"How?" Storm said, looking annoyed. "And besides, we _can't_ just grab them. Remember what I said earlier?"

"We can if they were provoking us, can't we?"

"And how would we create such a scenario?" she said, starting to look a little bit interested.

"Well, they tried going after Xavier a few years back, didn't they? They just love those clean-cut, normal-looking mutants who are pretty well off in society. They want to bring those ones down, maybe even more so than the ones, you know, actually causing trouble." I said the last part quickly, as I had actually _been_ one of those. "And that time that Hank McCoy was given a presidential pardon? Oh, they were _all_ over that," I added.

"How do you know all of this?" Wolverine raised an eyebrow at me.

I held out my hands. "Hey. Something called the newspaper. Some of us actually read it."

This seemed to satisfy him, because the next thing he said was, "So what's your point?"

"My point is, every time they hear about some mutant being praised by the media, they go straight after them. What we're going to do is set some bait."

"Hold on. Nobody said we were going to actually _use_ this plan of yours," Storm interrupted. Like I said: they were _really_ going to listen to their resident convict.

"What kind of bait?" Kitty asked. At least somebody was listening to me.

I started to pace like Wolverine, and said, "First we run a story about some wonderful, God's-gift-to-humanity mutant that everybody loves, in the local newspaper. Then we wait for the FOH to hear about him and an appearance that he'll be making, and spring the trap. We'll be waiting for them."

"There's absolutely no chance that that's going to work," Storm said definitively. "For one thing, you can't just print an outright lie in the newspaper! Do you realize how much trouble you can get in for that?"

"So? Newspapers print retractions all the time, don't they? All we'd have to do is print one after we've caught them and say we were fed some misinformation or whatever," I countered.

Wolverine, who had been pacing back and forth, was suddenly frozen to a spot. Storm was still looking disapproving, but Wolverine said to her, "Ororo… I think that kid's on to something."

"Absolutely not!" she thundered. "I will not put any of my students in such a dangerous position like that, after what happened to Charlie."

I almost rolled my eyes. I thought being a part of the X-Men involved the risks of trying to protect people, or whatever it was their mottos were.

Wolverine grinned slowly, and then finally retracted his claws. "So don't send a _student_."

Somehow Storm didn't seem confused by the person Wolverine was referring to, and said, "We may have to hurry if we want to prevent this attack. Since I can't see any other way to do this, I will take the blame for the false article in the newspaper if our retraction is not accepted, although I hope it doesn't come to that."

She still wasn't too happy about my idea, though, so she didn't say much else, but I could see that Wolverine was definitely excited. Especially when Storm said, "_You_ call him. He likes you better than everyone else, anyway." The two of them started to leave the room – they were going to start working on this plan right away! Wolverine seemed like he was even impressed by my idea. He said to me, "You _got_ it, kid!"

Kitty, Charlie and I were the only ones left. I was stunned into silence. "Wow, John," Kitty then said. "This could actually work!"

"It could, but it could also get us all into a lot of trouble," I admitted. "I don't care what Storm says, she's gonna find some way to pin the blame on me if this backfires."

"Storm doesn't lie about stuff like that," Kitty assured me, but she was looking a little worried. "Still, I hope nothing goes wrong. I actually really like your idea. I hope it works."

Three days later, two rather significant things happened. The first was the arrival of our bait. After Storm and Wolverine decided to set my plan into motion, there had been some talk of someone coming to the mansion to help out, but I myself didn't hear much about it, other than the fact that he would be here soon.

I was extremely anxious to find out who it was – after all, this had been _my_ plan. I wanted to be a part of its unfolding. I thought Wolverine would probably make sure that I'd be able to play some part in it, and as a matter of fact, he did. When he found out that I'd done some journalism work before – amateur work, really – he said that I absolutely had to help with the writing of the article. I ended up doing all of it, and made up a telekinetic mutant (I figured that was generic enough) called "Adam Weaver."

Adam Weaver was like a saint – he'd done work at various charity events, used his powers to stop some burglaries and other crimes, and had participated in this year's AIDS walk. He was an outstanding student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, making top marks in all of his classes, and winning several county-wide track meets. And the main point the article was making was the announcement of a local appearance of his, where he'd be doing a book talk. I even had Kitty make a record for him in the school's database. It scared me a little that she could just do that, but then I remembered what a goody-goody she was and brushed away the idea of her changing around people's records.

I showed the finished article to Hank McCoy, who put on his glasses and, upon reading it, said, "_Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality._ Joseph Conrad. Well done, young man," and handed it back to me.

I just stared at him. I think that meant that he approved.

Then I looked up "Weaver" in Kitty's phone book, and found over a hundred entries, of which about thirty just had the first name initial A. Perfect. I handed the phone book back to Kitty, who said, "Think this is going to work?"

"Who knows? For all we know I could be locked up by tomorrow night for printing such outrageous lies in a paper, since pretty much any little thing could get me locked up right now!" I snapped.

"Quit being so negative!" she coaxed.

As for our bait, a small, personal jet was arriving on the landing strip that the X-Men's Blackbird used. I ran outside, not knowing at all what to expect. The hatch of the jet opened, and a thin, tired-looking man with black hair stepped out.

"_Morph_!" Wolverine cried, and gave him a hug so hard that Morph struggled to get away, and then cackled.

"You should see your face!" he laughed. "It looks _something like this_," he said, his voice – and his whole body! – suddenly turning into Wolverine.

Wolverine wasn't fazed at all. Instead, he just said, "Do you have to say that every time I see you?" and gave him another hug.

I was pretty impressed, even though I'd seen Mystique shape-shift dozens upon dozens of times. "Nice," I commented. I was always vaguely jealous of certain other mutants who didn't seem to have a limitation like I did.

A bunch of the other students were started to gather near the jet, too, but since I was there with Wolverine, Morph noticed me first and said, "Who's this young man?"

"Pyro," I said.

He turned into me and repeated, "Pyro!" in my own voice. I recoiled. Mystique had never done that and it kind of freaked me out. Wolverine just laughed, and introduced me as the one who had actually come up with the plan to lure out members of the Friends of Humanity.

"He came here straight from Muir Island, in Scotland," Wolverine told me.

"Er, thanks for coming out," I said, not used to having to be polite.

"Anything for the X-Men," he replied, having already reverted back to his normal form. "As long as it's not Sentinels," he added.

"Not this time, buddy," Wolverine assured him. I didn't know what they were talking about. Probably better not to ask.

The second event of the day was brought to my attention by Charlie. Storm had told him that there was an emergency and that he had to come get the phone on the common room line. I was there playing cards with Kitty – I couldn't believe she tore herself away from her computer – and heard his end of the conversation. It was mostly filled with exclamations ("What!") and deity references ("Oh, my _God_!"), so I didn't know what it was about, but when he'd hung up, he had a horror-stricken look on his face.

I looked at him questioningly. "My mom," he said. "My house burned down. They… my mom and dad… they're okay… but the whole house. Completely burned."

That was a surprise to me. Especially since I usually don't often hear of too many fires that I hadn't caused myself, unless it was a forest fire.

Kitty had immediately jumped up and ran over to Charlie to comfort him. Just like her to do so, too. "I'm so happy your parents weren't hurt!" she said. I was grateful she was there to do the sympathy talk, so I wouldn't have to. Hell, she was pretty damn good at it.

I put down my cards guiltily when Storm, Wolverine, and Hank – who hadn't left for his office yet – walked into the room. They were all eyeing me.

"_What_!" I exploded.

"John… you didn't…?" Storm questioned.

"No, of _course_ not! How could I have?" I said angrily, pointing to my anklet.

The three adults just kind of exchanged looks, and seemed to quell their suspicions. "No," Hank said. "I don't believe you were responsible – we were, as the saying goes, jumping to conclusions."

"Thanks," I said with a hint of sarcasm. "Look – it _is_ summer. Haven't you noticed that there are wildfires everywhere? I mean, you could even say that they're spreading like…" I let my sentence trail off, and held my palms up in a "duh" expression.

Wolverine smirked. "Don't worry, punk. I'm going to find out who did this. This could be the attack that they were talking about."

"Could be," I said, a little relieved.

It turns out that Charlie's mom and dad had gotten out of the house before it spread too badly, and were offered a place to stay at the school until they found somewhere else. But Charlie's mother was convinced that whoever had set the fire was after her, or her husband, and didn't want to be near Charlie until they were sure he'd be safe. They were staying in a hotel somewhere.

The next day, Charlie had nearly reverted back to his normally optimistic self after he had several telephone conversations with his parents, assured that they were safe. Storm received word from the fire department that a large metal sheet had been found at the front of the house – Charlie's parents had left out the back – with the words, "_WE'RE NOT FINISHED_" spray-painted onto it. I took this as a sign that the fire hadn't actually been the larger attack that Charlie's tormentors mentioned, and Kitty agreed. She's a smart girl, so it felt good to have her support on something like that.

Besides that bit of news, things had calmed down for the most part. My article was printed in the local paper under a pseudonym, so now all we had to do was wait for that "book talk," which would be in a couple of days. I finally had a quiet moment to take a shower, when all of a sudden I heard a loud squeak above the running water. It sounded exactly like… my window!

Horrified, I put on a towel, cracked open the bathroom door, and grabbed my lighter off the dresser. I'd been right! They were attacking the school, starting with _my room_! Someone had opened my window and was attempting to climb in. We were too late!

I just stood there gawking like an idiot, until the trespasser had gone right through the window and landed on _my_ floor. When he did, I screamed at him, which made him jump and scream right back. I recognized him. And he was no terrorist. In fact, he was one of the last people I ever expected to see again!

* * *

**Author's notes:** The Morph you see here is from the original animated series timeline. I hope it's not too much of a stretch - he wasn't featured as a very main character, so his continuity could easily be very flexible. One of the last times we see him in the cartoon, he was working with Moira MacTaggert on Muir Island, and returned to the X-Men to help, but not permanently. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, "**sleepall-day**" at Livejournal.  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.   
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Livejournal: **If it's more convenient for you, feel free to keep up with this story via the Livejournal user: **lovethiscity**.

* * *

**Chapter 11: "I don't like to lie, Kitty."**

It had turned into a shrieking contest between me and the man who'd crawled through my window. He was practically standing in my bathroom, too, since my window was right next to it.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" I shrieked.

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" he replied.

We stopped when a thundering stampede of footsteps came rushing to my door, and someone began pounding on the door.

"What the blazes is going on in there, Pyro!" Wolverine demanded. "Cut that racket out!"

"John, can I just come in?" Kitty's voice cried.

She didn't even wait for me to answer. Instead, she just phased through my door, and when she did, our shrieking contest gained another competitor. But she managed to stop long enough to unlock and open my door, and in burst a flood of people.

I was afraid that everyone at the door would just start pouring in, but Wolverine, Storm, Bobby, and Rogue, who were at the front of the crowd, stopped dead in their tracks. They seemed to all gasp and stare in unison.

Rogue was the first to speak. "_Cyclops_?" It was barely a whisper, but everyone was frozen, eyes widened and jaws hanging open, so we heard her loud and clear.

Wolverine was no exception. His arms were hanging at his sides with the claws extended, bent over so that they almost touched the floor, and his eyes looked about as big as dinner plates. He slowly turned to stare at me, and looked like he wanted to say, "So, you went to go take a shower, right? And _this_ came up out of the drain, right?"

I nodded at him. Scott Summers, the old leader of the X-Men, Cyclops, the Overgrown Boy Scout… had just surfaced in my bathroom.

I was so relieved that it wasn't one of the Friends of Humanity that I could've jumped for joy, except that my towel would've fallen off. Then all the excitement caught up with me and I let out a long breath, and put my hand on my chest to feel how hard my heart had been beating.

Cyclops just looked at me. He looked more annoyed than someone who'd just come back from the dead into the land of the living. "Aren't you supposed to be with Magneto?" he asked me disdainfully.

"Aren't _you_ supposed to be _dead_?" I countered.

"Well, I was trying to get in here unnoticed, and then nobody would've been the wiser, would they? Thanks a lot, Pyro!" he scorned.

I let out a surprised scoff. "There's something very annoying about you, Mr. Summers," I said, squinting my eyes into slits. I'd been trying to behave myself since I was basically under arrest at the mansion, but at that moment, everything that I was trying to hold back about my regular, honest-to-a-fault personality was coming out. "Is it possibly the fact that you're incredibly bad at being a smart-ass?"

"Stop that," he said, sounding exactly the way he had when I used to have a class he taught. In fact, Cyclops was looking as normal as ever, complete with the same old ruby quartz sunglasses he always wore, and he was frowning at the crowd that had gathered at my door.

"Is that really you?" Storm finally spoke.

Cyclops sighed. "It's really me, Storm. It's good to see you."

"Why, you little _brat_!" Wolverine exclaimed, waving his claws around, causing several students to jump back. "It really _is_ you! And you had me feelin' _sorry_ when I thought you'd died. You let us all think you were gone, but you were just _cowardly_ hiding out somewhere, weren't you!"

"That is _not_ what happened!" Cyclops shouted.

"Then what!" It was more a growl than a question.

Cyclops and Wolverine were practically in each others' faces now, both looking like they were going to burst if they didn't kill the other.

"Er," I tried to interject, "could we maybe do this outside?" and gave them a point in the direction of my door.

They ignored me for a moment. Damn it, that dream that everyone has about the whole school seeing you in your underwear? Right. That was me.

I yelled at the crowd, "Seriously, all of you. Come on!" That seemed to finally break the spell, and the group started to disperse. This left Wolverine and Cyclops snarling at each other like a pair of wolves fighting for dominance, Storm still staring in shock and shouting at both of them in vain, and a few other students who had been close to Cyclops, including Kitty. Kitty – well, I don't even know _what_ she was thinking. She looked like she was in shock over Cyclops's return as well, but mixed with happiness to see him. Then when she glanced at me in my towel, she tried to stifle her laughter.

"What!" I said, when she let out a snort at my towel. I clutched at it and said, "I meant you too, Kitty! Out!" She was still laughing, though, when she followed my finger and left.

"Everybody!" I insisted to my freaked out staff. An incredible ruckus had broken out in my bathroom – Wolverine and Cyclops bickering, Storm pointing, and Cyclops denying Wolverine's accusations. I managed to shove them all out of my door. Once they were out, I told them sarcastically, "I'll leave you to your joyous reunion," and slammed the door.

After I was able to get dressed in peace, I retreated to the kitchen to make dinner, and found Peter Rasputin there in metal form. He was making himself some food, with his back turned to me. I shifted my eyes back and forth between Peter – Colossus, really, at that moment – and the refrigerator. He was starting to leave the kitchen. What in the world was he doing indoors in his metal form, anyway? Was I ever going to get another chance like this? Should I? Should I not?

Too late! _Clang_! In one swift motion I'd plucked a magnet off the refrigerator and thrown it at Colossus. A direct hit, right between the shoulders. He spun around immediately. "_Pyro_!" he admonished. "Did no one teach you manners during your stay here?" his Russian accent soft but evident. He reached his arm around to my well-aimed hard-to-reach-spot, and struggled for a moment before removing the magnet.

I chose to ignore the jab he made about my manners, and responded, "You know, if you're going to use your power to turn into a gigantic tin can, you may as well have a sense of humor about it."

"I have sense of humor," he insisted, and handed the magnet to me.

"Not one that I can see," I replied.

"No? Why is this?" Peter asked.

"You, Peter, have the flattest personality I have ever encountered in a person," I told him truthfully. I didn't seem to care that, after a lifetime of telling the truth, some of my brutal honesty had warped itself into rudeness.

"_John_!" More admonishing. This time, it came from Kitty. She was standing in the doorway behind me. "Did you really have to say that? Peter, just don't listen to him."

She'd asked me if I really had to say that. It was the truth. So I calmly said to her, "When I first got here, as a prisoner, did you really mean it when you said that you were glad to have me back?" Kitty _had_ said that, but she'd been lying to her pretty little teeth and I knew it.

Kitty had no answer, so she settled for glaring angrily, and laid a hand on Peter. Peter, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the remarks that had been passed. He rubbed her back and said, "Don't worry about Peter," and took his food and left.

When Peter was gone, Kitty said in the most sarcastic tone imaginable coming from her, "You don't have any reason to be acting like that." She probably wasn't even aware of how alike we were in terms of speaking our minds. "I can't imagine that _Peter_ did something to piss you off."

"Of course he didn't. I was just talking to him," I replied, not at all snidely.

My calm tone must have surprised her. "What?" she blurted. I think she was about to accuse me of having been simply rude, or something, but her expression twisted a little bit until she looked calmer. Then she asked, "You really were just talking to him, were you?"

"Kitty… I don't lie to people. And I wasn't about to lie to him," I explained to her.

But Kitty wasn't having any of it. She looked like I'd just told her that Colossus and I were really brothers, and that had been playful sibling rivalry earlier. She snorted and said, "You don't _lie_ to people? Lie, cheat, and steal, isn't that the credo of the Brotherhood of Mutants?"

"Absolutely not. Magneto had a much more colorful way of saying that mutants should rule over humans," I told her with an air of haughtiness.

She just looked at me derisively again. I glared right back at her. I was feeling pretty cranky myself. For some reason, after discovering that Cyclops was the intruder in my room, I'd started reverting quickly back into my old self. I thought maybe I was just getting tired of pretending I was someone that I really wasn't, and seeing someone from my past… it just reminded me of, well, me.

"I don't like to lie, Kitty," I said conclusively.

"That just makes me think you're even more of a liar, John Allerdyce!" she said hotly.

_Liar_, to me, was a fighting word. Nothing I'd said to Kitty in the past few minutes had been a lie. Actually, not much at all that I've said since I arrived at Xavier's School was a lie – starting from the moment I began enrolling here as a student. I mean, sure, I'd been piling up bullshit with Amelia, but that woman was smart enough to recognize sarcasm from lies, so I didn't count that.

"And _you_ wouldn't be talking to me that way if you couldn't phase yourself through anything I hit you with! You're a coward, Kitty _Pryde_," I shot back, responding to that "angry parent using the full name" tactic she'd used on me.

She opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. A shocked, angry look was on her face, and she started to say something, but I cut her off.

"Never mind, Kitty. Just forget it, okay?" I tried to dismiss my comments with a wave of my hand. "I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry that I yelled." I didn't mention that I was sorry for what I actually said to her, but she didn't look as angry anymore. She still didn't seem to know what to say, though.

The question I asked Kitty earlier, about my arrival to the school, was quite a parallel to an event in my life that I couldn't forget.

I was only thirteen at the time. I wrote a poem that had won first place in New South Wales, and it qualified for further entry in the contest that would include kids from all over Australia. You could have lit up a room with my face when I found out, I was so elated. My mother had been proud of me, and accompanied me to the ceremony where they presented me with the award.

A few days later, my mother caught me telling our neighbor that her clematis, which was crawling over into our side of the yard, was an eyesore and should be tended to more carefully. My mother apologized profusely on my behalf, and when we were back inside our house, she'd cried, "John, honestly! How could you have been so rude?"

Honestly, indeed. At thirteen years old I'd grown rather defiant and asked her, "Mom, was Dad really sick and couldn't go to the awards ceremony?"

Her expression told me everything I needed. I was so angry that I didn't even bother entering the nationwide contest. I remembered that moment distinctly, because from that moment on, the more my dad lied, the more I told the truth.

The thing was, my dad had spent the first part of my life trying to convince me that he was a big shot hero, citing numerous examples from work. He was a doctor, a surgeon, and was constantly saving lives. From what I could discern, he was a good surgeon, too, but he didn't have to embellish all kinds of details for me to believe it. It was a few years before I was old enough to realize that he had saved a lot less lives than he claimed to have. I guess he just wanted to impress me.

My dad spent the next part of my life avoiding me. I discovered that I could play with the flame on his lighter earlier than a lot of mutants find their powers. I was eleven, and didn't know that anything was wrong with me. My dad started spending more and more time away from my mom and me, and my parents were constantly bickering about the fact that he never told either of us the truth about why. It wasn't until the first time I ran away from home that I realized that _I_ was the reason behind the strain in their marriage. And by the time that I wished I could tell my father that he didn't need to convince me that he was a hero for me to appreciate him, it was too late.

The last time I ever ran away from home, there were no harsh words exchanged. Just relief. And that hurt more than any angry words could have.

Still, I appreciated that, for the first time in years, they didn't lie to me, telling me that they wished I would stay, or that they wished they'd never had me at all. They had loved me. It would have been a lie to say they hadn't. But they wanted me gone. By the time I had arrived in New York, I couldn't have lied even if I wanted to.

Kitty finally said, "Fine, then. If that's the truth, why don't you like to lie?"

Most of the people that knew me growing up – they never really questioned it. If I ever mentioned that I didn't like to lie, which I did mention quite often, they didn't believe me at first because of that devil-may-care attitude of mine, but they soon learned that I almost always gave the truth. They learned this just by being around me. So, Kitty was the first to have asked me outright _why_ I didn't like to lie.

Kitty didn't need to know all of the details. I hesitated, and then I sat down at the kitchen island and indicated that she should sit, too. "Didn't I once tell you about when I first came to this school?" I thought back to a short conversation we had when Kitty herself was new; I had already been a student for a while.

"Yeah," Kitty nodded. "But just that you were fifteen. That's really all I remember you saying. And I didn't even know that you'd come here from Australia, until you told me that a few days ago."

"Yup. I don't talk about that much. Most people just think I up and left home one day because my parents didn't want a mutant for a kid."

"But, that's what happened, isn't it? At least, that's what I think you said, but it was a long time ago," Kitty said, tilting her head.

"It is. But that's not the whole truth. The truth is that I ran away lots of times before I left for good. My parents hated the fact that I'm a mutant, but my dad more so. He used to tell me all sorts of lies when I was younger, but after he found out I'm a mutant it just got worse. He started lying about different things. About why he was always gone and why he didn't show up to this poetry awards ceremony that I won a prize at, and –" I stopped myself right there. I hadn't meant to reveal that much.

Kitty just looked at me, expecting me to continue.

"Well, so yeah, it just got progressively worse," I said, and then I proceeded with the rest of the story. What was wrong with me? Besides my mother, only one other person knew that story about the contest and the clematis.

"Aw, John…" Kitty said quietly when I'd finished. "My… my parents weren't all that thrilled to find out I'm a mutant, too, but, they know about this school, and we have a pretty good relationship. I'm really sorry you had to go through that and miss out on having a family."

"Don't be sorry," I said with a huff. I hated sympathy. I told her, "It's just the facts. So there you have it. I won't lie, and I won't complain about the consequences that come as a result of that."

"Is that so?" she said, challengingly. The girl had spunk.

I responded with some spunk of my own. "Hell. Did you ever see me complain about the black eye that Moira's husband gave me when they came to visit? What was his name – Sean?"

"Oh… yeah," Kitty said with a light laugh. "I remember you walking around for about a week like that. What did you say to him, anyway?"

"That his sonic scream sounded like the dying strangulations of an enormous, bratty toddler from hell," I said, remembering that conversation verbatim.

The fact that I made Kitty laugh made me smile inwardly. She attempted a joke, saying "Well, John, there's a reason why they call them 'the fighting Irish'."

I smiled at her for real to show that her efforts were appreciated.

"So, Kitty, the next time you decide to call me a liar…" I warned, "just remember that I _don't_ take that kind of crap from anyone."

Kitty nodded, still looking like she felt sorry for me. I wanted to clear the bad mood from the kitchen, so I got up from the island. In a very obvious attempt to change the subject, I said, "So. Cyclops."

"Oh, God… yeah," Kitty said. "What _happened_, John?"

"What, you mean with him materializing in my toilet?" I said conversationally.

"No, well – I mean, that too!" Kitty said, flustered.

"Really, I don't know. I was taking a shower, and then all of a sudden I heard my window opening. I opened the door, and there he was!"

"I'm going to find out how he came back," Kitty decided.

"Who's going to tell you anything?" I objected.

"I'll have you know that _some_ of us at this school are actually trusted," she said, but her tone was light. "I'll ask Storm."

"Think she'll talk with me around?" I wondered out loud.

"Why not? She doesn't seem to think that you're a threat to… well, I mean, what harm can it do?" Kitty said, practically covering her mouth at her slip.

"Kitty, Kitty," I said, shaking my head at her. "Take a leaf out of my book and stop thinking about whether I'm going to care about what you say. Because chances are, I'm not."

"John," she protested. "Now I _really_ don't believe you. Maybe you don't lie to other people, but you need to stop lying to yourself, too. There are things you care about. I don't know what all of them are, but they've got to be there. And maybe if you stopped being so negative you'd start to see what they are."

"Are you insinuating that I care about what you say to me?" I sneered, raising my tone slightly.

"I'm not insinuating, I'm _saying_ that if you'd open yourself up a little more, you might start to care about more than you think you do!" she said, getting riled up once again, just as soon as I'd gotten her to calm down by talking to her.

"All right, all right," I said, putting my hands up. "Look, all I meant was that I just don't take too many things so personally. So stop worrying."

We walked to Storm's office. The door was open, and Storm, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Charlie were all gathered inside. Kitty entered tentatively, until Storm turned towards her and said, "It's okay, Kitty. Come on in." Then Storm noticed me, and said, "John?... You can come in too, if you'd like."

"What's going on?" Kitty asked, not needing to specify what she was asking about.

Cyclops answered for her. He had his hands on his waist and said, "We were just talking about my friends." He tilted his head in Charlie's direction and said, "Charlie's parents."

His friends? Before I could raise any questions, Charlie admitted, "Sorry I had to fudge the facts a little, before."

"About what?" I asked. Kitty and I were the only ones wondering, because of course, everyone else had been told already.

"About the fact that I didn't know what I was doing when I switched – castled – with Wolverine," he answered.

I gave him some serious fisheye. He wasn't daunted, however, and just smiled at me. "I really liked that nickname, John. Thanks, man."

I just groaned audibly. "It's dumb, dude," I told him.

"No, it's really cool! I like it. Storm even assigned me a codename for the school – Castler," Charlie insisted.

I was secretly pleased they thought my idea was clever, but at the same time I thought it sounded idiotic. I told them so. "It's a chess term. It doesn't at all sound intimidating, you guys," I said, addressing the whole crowd.

Kitty sighed, and said, "Can we please get back to the subject?"

Charlie responded, "Yeah, so… I did switch with someone from Xavier's School on purpose, but it's true that I didn't know who I was going to switch with."

Cyclops added, "It was me who put him up to it. I was asking him to get one of my spare glasses for me."

So that's how come he was wearing a pair when he'd crawled through my window. All that fuss over Professor Xavier's return, and in the end it had all been for a pair of fucking glasses. I remembered what Charlie said when I first talked to him, that he usually switched with whoever was physically closest to where he wanted to go. I'd found Wolverine in the hallway when he had just been switched with. Come to think of it, he'd been lying at the end of the hallway, where the staircase was. And Cyclops's room was right at the top of those stairs. It was starting to make sense to me.

I nodded, and Cyclops said, "Sorry, again, to put you guys through all that worry." He was still the Boy Scout I knew. What had happened to him?

"But, Cyclops," I pressed. "Where _were_ you? I mean, what happened?"

Storm and Wolverine, who must have already heard this story, began discussing something in hushed whispers with each other. Cyclops turned to me and Kitty, and said, "I don't want a whole lot of rumors flying around the school. Just, do me a favor and don't say too much more than you need to, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever," I said. Kitty nodded earnestly.

"I saw Jean, at Alkali Lake…" he started to say. I knew about this already. Hell, everybody did. The X-Men knew that that's where Cyclops had gone when he was last seen, and that Jean had seen him too. Then after news of Cyclops's apparent death, those two facts had percolated everywhere, including into Magneto's crowd.

Then Cyclops shook his head and said, "You guys know the gist of what happened, I guess. Storm tells me there was a lot of talk going on."

"Obviously. Death – hello! It's definitely a conversation starter. And even more so, when you find out it wasn't even real," I insisted.

Cyclops shrugged off my comment, and said, "Jean started building up a lot of telepathic pressure around me. I'd never felt it like that before." He looked like he was tired of telling the story. "I wound up at the bottom of the lake… and mentally cried out for help, which the Professor heard. He's the only reason why I'm alive now. The Professor. He… he saved me, he kept me alive, kept me shielded from Jean's mental power. I don't think Jean even realized he was doing it – as far as she knew, I was gone." He got a distressed look on his face, and didn't look like he wanted to keep talking.

Two of the most important people in his life were gone, and he hadn't even been around to mourn them with everyone else. He had to do his grieving alone. His face started to scrunch up, and – oh, God. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a grown man crying. I mean, what are you exactly supposed to do? Let him cry? Tell him he's a baby?

Kitty started to approach him, but my hand shot out before she could do anything. This man had never been a surrogate father to me the way Magneto pretended to be, but he was a patient and fair teacher. He was the only member of the staff that I knew to be an orphan, and sympathized with me immediately when I first arrived. I wouldn't say that we were close – we weren't, but he had been kind. _He'd_ been the one who knew about my "contest and clematis story," and he had taught me to drive, since I left home at too early an age to be taught by my own parents. I had been grateful that he risked the perils of a teenager driving his car, and remembered the feeling of resentment when Wolverine clawed it during our trip to visit Bobby's family in Boston. I gripped Scott's shoulder, and said, "Easy, big guy," and let him cry.


	12. Chapter 12

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris,**"sleepall-day"** at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.   
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 12: "Shall I compare thee...?"**

Scott Summers had never been a mentor of mine, because I never had a mentor. He had only been a teacher who used to be nice to me because I was practically as much of an orphan as he was. I appreciated having him there, though, especially when we took out his car. Even so, I never thought the two of us were particularly close, so that didn't make me feel any better about the fact that I now had to comfort him through his tears.

I considered my options. "Your girlfriend and father-figure died. Get over it," didn't seem quite right. Neither did, "Hey, if Dr. Grey could see you right now, she'd be pretty embarrassed." I ended up not having to say much, though, because Cyclops, who was full-on dragging Niagara Falls already, had leaned in for a sticky, gross… hug-like… thing.

I cringed, and gave him a couple of weak pats on the back. "Hey…" I started to say, but by then, Storm and Wolverine had turned their attention this way. Their eyes were widened as much as they had been when they _first_ saw Cyclops earlier that day. Apparently he hadn't had his daily cry yet.

Storm and Wolverine didn't even have to say anything for me to understand. Cyclops hadn't shed a tear since his return, and now he was doing it on _my_ shoulder. Don't worry. I was even more surprised than they were.

"Oh, Scott…" Storm said after collecting herself from the shock. She came over and put a hand on his back too. She said, "It's going to be all right," but he just kept crying anyway.

I finally broke him off of me and said, "It's a good thing you weren't wearing your visor. Then you'd have salt deposits stuck to the inside of it, and your face, too." Cyclops finally managed a weak, choked-out laugh at that, and started wiping away some of the tears. He allowed Storm to give him a hug, too.

Kitty was just standing there, shaking her head at me. "How do you do that, John?"

"Huh?"

"Make people laugh when they were just mad at you," she answered. Then I realized that she was talking about herself, too. Yeah, I guess I had a tendency to make her mad.

I chuckled without humor. "I never mean to."

Kitty absolutely had to say her own words of comfort to Cyclops too, so when the sob-fest was over, the two of us left Storm's office. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't come back sooner, but he was still a bit of a wreck. It would have to wait until later. Kitty was returning to her room, and I followed. I don't know if I was even aware that I was doing it, but I followed her all the way back to her room.

Fortunately, Kitty didn't seem to think it was as weird as I did. She just opened the door for me, instead of phasing through first, and there I went. I must have looked like an idiot, because I'd already stepped into her room when I asked, "Can I come in?" Kitty shrugged her shoulders in an expression of "Why not?" and told me I could sit on either the bed or the beanbag chair.

I chose to just stand, and inspected her bookcase while Kitty sat at her desk and turned on the computer. It was single room, so it was a little bit cramped with all of the things she managed to stuff in there. Kitty had a lot of books that I recognized from class, and a few others that I thought must have come from other classes that I didn't take. _Heuristics in Information Retrieval_ was one. It was with a bunch of other books on computers, like one called _Advances in Computational Management_. There were some novels, a few comic books, and then one title caught my eye. It was _William Shakespeare: The Complete Works_.

Kitty's keyboard was clacking away. I wondered if she really trusted that I wouldn't cause any trouble, or if she was just going about her business while I was right there because I'd be put in prison if I tried anything faster than you can say "I told you so."

"Hey, you like Shakespeare?" I asked her.

She stopped typing and turned to look at the book I was pointing at. "Oh, that," she said, almost exasperated. "He's okay, I guess. I had to get that for English last year."

No wonder I didn't actually recognize that it was from class. I was probably off terrorizing some poor bystander, doing Magneto's dirty work, by then.

"Oh," I just said. "Well, I haven't been doing much reading these days. Although I'd like to. Mind if I borrow this?" I pulled it off the shelf.

"Sure, go ahead," Kitty replied, going back to her computer.

"I've been meaning to read _Othello_ forever," I told her.

"Really? That's the one I had to buy that book for. Ugh," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not about to complain about Shakespeare, since so many people think he's the greatest writer who ever lived, but that was not exactly the most fun I had in English."

"Are you kidding? I love reading his stuff!" I exclaimed. "This'll definitely keep me busy for awhile."

Kitty paused, and then said, "I was about to say that I never would have figured you to be much of a reader, but you always did pretty well in English, didn't you?"

"Eh," I said casually. "It doesn't come so hard to me. I used to read a lot when I was a kid. And I like writing. I did win a poetry contest, remember?"

"That's right," Kitty answered.

I flipped through the book. "Hey, this has sonnets in it, too."

Kitty turned around, and leaned on her chair so that she was looking at me. "We had to read those, too. Otherwise I could've just bought _Othello_ by itself and saved myself five bucks." This girl obviously harbored some harsh feelings towards her English class.

"What's wrong with sonnets?" I teased.

"When you've read them a dozen times already, and the teacher insists you read them again, and you spend entire periods deciphering the meaning of a single couplet, then there's something wrong with sonnets," she snapped back.

I stared at her disapprovingly. "Hey. You're starting to talk like me. Bad move, Kitty-cat."

That made her smile with her teeth. It was – I hate to admit it – kind of cute. I told her, "Come on. There's got to be one in here that you liked reading. Which one?" and handed her the book, open to the sonnets section.

She took the book from me and glanced at the pages, frowning at each one. I noticed Kitty liked to sort of mumble to herself as she read.

"When forty winters shall besiege thy brow.. As fast as thou shalt wane… no, fell asleep during that one…" She looked up at me and said, "How about this one? _Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate_… even though that is kind of a cop-out choice, since everyone knows that one."

I burst out laughing.

"What's so funny!" she demanded.

"Nothing…" I said, sitting on her bed. "Just memories." I shook my head to show I wasn't too serious.

"Okay, now I'm intrigued," Kitty said. "You have to tell me."

"Mystique," I told her simply. "One time she was in some other form – I don't even remember anymore what it was – and then she changed back to herself, and asked, 'Am I _too_ blue?' It was just like she was asking if her pants made her butt look big, or something. And then Magneto recited that poem."

Kitty looked confused. "Shall I compare thee…?" And then a look of recognition dawned on her, and she said with a smile, "Blue skies. Summer skies. That's… cute," she started to say, and then stopped herself.

"What, don't want to call Magneto 'cute'?" I asked.

"He's not exactly what I'd call the cute old grandfatherly type," she replied.

I paused a little bit before telling her, "Don't worry. I know. I just thought… you know. I miss them sometimes," careful not to say too much. I never said that I regretted everything about being in the Brotherhood.

"So," I said, changing the mood. I snatched the book out of Kitty's hand said, "So it's okay if I borrow this, then?"

Kitty said, "I didn't really want it to begin with. You know, John, you can just _have_ it."

"You're serious?" I asked her. She sounded disdainful. She must've really wanted to get rid of it.

"Really. Go ahead, you wanted something to read. You said so yourself. I want you to have something to do," Kitty encouraged. Then again, maybe she actually wanted to give it to me rather than just wanting to get rid of it? Whatever. I had no idea.

"Thanks," I said, a little flippantly. "That's cool. Makes me kind of want to start writing again. You know, after that article I wrote for the paper, I kind of missed it. Maybe I'll start."

Kitty was nodding, but I wanted to avoid her asking me what I write about, so I said, "So what's the deal with you and Tinhead these days?" I asked casually.

Kitty groaned, and then instead of answering my question, said, "You know, I really don't appreciate you calling him that. And I bet he doesn't either. He's just too nice of a guy to _say_ so."

"Aw, that guy's got a hide like an elephant even without the metal," I told her. "You probably shouldn't worry so much about hurting his poor feelings."

"John, I'm _warning_ you, quit being so horrible to people who never did anything to you," Kitty said, but she sounded more exasperated than angry.

"Wow, something _must_ have happened between you two if it gets you that upset," I laughed.

"Look, nothing happened, all right? That's what the deal is. We were pretty close, yeah. We're still friends. But before anything could happen, I…" Kitty stopped talking.

I didn't say anything, because people will talk if they want to talk, and no amount of, "Then what happened?" will make them tell you if they don't want to.

Sure enough, Kitty heaved a sigh, and then said, "I thought Bobby might've been… well, interested in me, but he was just… I don't even know what he was doing. It seemed like he was trying to get close to me but nothing ever came out of it and I guess I got my hopes up for nothing. You were right about Rogue getting the cure, you know. As soon as she got it, they were all over each other." She spoke bitterly.

I was right? Well, Bobby must've been the one who told her about what I'd said to him at the clinic.

"Well, Kitty-cat… you're the one that's good at the sympathy talks, here," I said finally.

She gave a half-hearted laugh and said, "It's fine. I didn't expect any from you. I don't even know why I told you all of that."

"What? So, you thought someone had it for you so you didn't take a chance with someone who _maybe_ had it for you – it's _okay_!" I assured her like it wasn't a big deal, even waving a hand. "Who the hell can count the amount of times people do stupid things like that?"

I thought what I'd just said wasn't the nicest thing to say, but Kitty seemed to take it all right. She said, "Thanks," weakly, and right then it didn't matter to me anymore if she was only letting me into her room because she knew I couldn't do anything to hurt her. I liked being there.

"Nah. I should be thanking you for letting me hang out," I said, trying my best to sound casual.

"It's not a problem! And… yeah, you're right. What you said earlier, I mean. I'm just trying to forget the whole thing now, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't really say anything about it. _And_ if you'd be a little nicer to Peter." Kitty said the last part sternly.

"All right, all right. I'll quit calling him Tinhead," I resolved.

"You mean it?" Kitty asked. "I don't know yet whether or not I should believe you about your truth-telling," she added, narrowing her eyes playfully at me.

"Yeah, of course," I said brightly. I intended to keep my word. "I promise," I even articulated.

I didn't call Colossus "Tinhead" anymore. True to form, I began referring to him as "The Shirtless Wonder" instead. The next time I passed by him in the hallway, he was, as usual, bare-chested and I said to him, "Hey, Shirtless Wonder."

Peter smiled back at me and said, "Hello yourself, John," with a wave.

It must have been the fact that the hallway had been fairly crowded that morning. The name spread as though it were something I set on fire. People continued to call him "Colossus," but with the exception of some of his friends and the staff members, the name "Peter" began slowly being replaced by the moniker "Shirtless Wonder."

I knew there was a problem when Morph, who didn't even know any of the younger students, approached me in the kitchen a few days later as Kitty and I were having lunch and said, "Hey, Pyro! Wish me luck tonight."

"Huh?" I asked. "Oh, yeah! The book talk's tonight!"

"Sure is," he affirmed, and then turned into a tall, lanky boy with brown hair, and perfect, white teeth. He was wearing a white track jersey with red letters. It said "WEAVER" on the back. He spun around, and said "What do you think?" sounding significantly younger.

"Exactly what I pictured in my head when I was writing the article," I approved.

"Really?" Morph asked.

"No," I snorted. "But close enough. You look good. You'll do great." I gave him a slap on the shoulder. "Good luck. Don't get killed out there and blow my chances for staying alive too, yeah?"

Morph changed back into himself and let out a high-pitched laugh. "We've got it all under control! And nobody's going to blame you if something goes wrong there. Heck, you're not even going to be there! Don't worry though, we've got lots of backup, like Wolverine and your friend the Shirtless Wonder."

The only person who found absolutely no humor in this new situation was Kitty Pryde. I wondered if she really was mad at me, or if she was just stubbornly refusing to be amused by me.

"You _know_ that's not what I meant by asking you to stop calling him 'Tinhead'!" she grumbled over lunch after Morph left.

"Oh, come on," I said, playing with my shark Zippo. "It's not exactly derogatory. And besides, he likes it."

Kitty had no response except to roll her eyes.

I paused between bites and asked apprehensively, "Are _you_ going?"

"Yeah. Almost everyone is," she answered.

Damn. I was hoping I wouldn't be feeling _too_ left out tonight.

"There has to be a lot of fans for Adam Weaver, right?" Kitty continued. "I mean… we wish you could go, too, since it was your idea."  
"Yeah, yeah, sure," I said. "Don't you get killed out there, too."

Kitty laughed. I was starting to hate admitting it was cute a little bit less now, but then she had to ruin it by saying, "You? Worry about me? You'd be better off tending to the kitchen."

I threw my lighter down on the countertop, just to show I could take her without it, and let out a frustrated growl, but she had already phased to the other side of the kitchen island, teasing me.

I sent her and a bunch of other kids off that night, and wished everyone luck, mostly out of fear that I'd get the boot if this didn't work. They all looked excited, like they were actually going to a book talk, not a trap set for the Friends of Humanity. I felt a twinge of jealousy as I stood at the front of the garage door, watching people pile into the cars and drive away. Even Cyclops had agreed to go. As he put it, the Friends of Humanity had destroyed the home he'd been safe in, and he was going so he could make sure that "none of them left his one-eyed sight." I genuinely wondered if he was being sarcastic, self-deprecating, or if he'd somehow gotten hold of a sense of humor.

"Bye, have _fun_," I called out sarcastically as the last car pulled out. But I was a wimp. I waited until they were out of earshot. Then, I went back inside and waited for them to come back.


	13. Chapter 13

**_You've Got To Go There To Come Back - Chapter 13_**  
**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author:** Iris, '**sleepallday**' at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.   
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 13: "I couldn't. I could never."**

I'd fallen asleep watching TV on the common room couch that night, which was easy enough to do because the mansion was so empty. Almost everyone was attending the book talk by Adam Weaver, a.k.a. Morph-in-disguise, at a private bookstore owned by one of Professor Xavier's friends. The common room phone ringing woke me up, and I sat up on the couch. It was already dark. The sun had only just started setting when everyone left.

I laid back down, trying to ignore the phone since I never answer it. After all, it's never for me. But it wouldn't stop ringing, so I grudgingly walked over to get it.

"Hey!" said a bright voice on the other end.

"Kitty?" I answered.

"Yeah, just stepped outside for a minute. Morph's really good. The crowd doesn't look like it's going to tire anytime soon. Just wanted to let you know how things are going," she said.

"Oh…" I said, unsure of how to answer. "Thanks… I guess? Well, I'll see you guys when you get back."

"All right. And Storm said she recognized at least two guys as Friends of Humanity members," Kitty said, lowering her voice even though she said she was outside.

"Damn it, I _told_ you those bastards were like that!" I muttered. "Well – that's good, that's good. Maybe this'll work."

Kitty laughed, and said, "_Don't_ worry. They've really got themselves organized here. But I'll let you know how things go, okay?"

"Uh, sure," I said. I did appreciate hearing from her. It was good to know I wasn't forgotten.

After we hung up, I wandered back into my room and turned on the old computer the staff was letting me use. My electronic communication was so well monitored that if I tried to place an online order for paper clips, about nine different people would be on me in a second accusing me of trying to help Magneto by supplying him with metallic office supplies, but hey, it was a computer. It was better than the first few weeks I was confined at the school, pretty much cut off from the world except for the newspaper, but it was really goddamn _slow_.

When Storm and a few other people were setting it up for me and I finally turned it on for the first time, the computer groaned and protested. I crossed my arms at Storm and said, "Listen, well, I think I'll go grow a beard, and then have some kids and watch them graduate, and then I'll come back to check on the computer."

That's how bad my computer is. But at least it's functional. And with the tightly secured watch on my internet use, the emails coming in to me mostly consist of Storm's weekly notices to all students. She even sends them to me, for some reason. Maybe she doesn't want me to feel left out or something, which makes me laugh, because all I ever do is just glance at them. They're just usually about upcoming events involving the school, announcements, new mutant tolerance issues or other newsworthy things like that. I was bored, so I opened the newest one.

_Adam Weaver Book Talk_ was at the top. The description was pretty harmless and wasn't incriminating. The real purpose of it had all been word of mouth. _Apply for Social Committees Positions_. Yeah, right. _Mandatory Meeting for All Research Volunteers_. Not me. _Hank McCoy to Speak at Public Forum, Sign Up Early To Attend_. I rolled my eyes. It was at a city meeting hall; couldn't go even if I wanted to. Whatever. None of those ever really concerned me.

Kitty didn't call again, or I didn't hear it because the next thing I knew, I was waking up again to the sound of the front door. I bolted up, and ran into the hallway. Everyone who had been at the book talk was streaming in through the front door, headed by Colossus, who was carrying an unconscious guy over his shoulder. God, they'd actually _done_ it! They were bringing someone in.

"Hey, what happened?" I demanded.

Colossus replied grimly, "They fired into the crowd. Morph can shrink so he is okay, and -"

Before he could continue, he was cut off by all the chatter that was going on through the crowd. Most of the people were talking at the same time, and Wolverine's authoritative voice finally broke out, "All right, all right, no one gets near him but Peter! Back off, everyone!"  
And with that, the two of them along with Cyclops and Storm went upstairs with the Friends of Humanity guy they brought in. The crowd was starting to dissipate, and I bumped into Kitty. "Hey," she said. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked excited. I guessed nothing had gone too wrong.

"Everything go okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, we're all fine," she said, talking as we walked. "Morph was fired at but he wasn't hit. Yeah, there were just two of them, and they had guns," she added, shaking her head. "We thought they were going to try something else, because that was pretty drastic, but Wolverine had us all really prepared. Everyone was pretty quick and we got them disarmed and then one got away, and Peter knocked out the other guy."

I nodded. "Sounds like a party."

Kitty laughed, and said, "Yeah, I'm sorry you had to miss out. It was actually kind of fun – I mean, if you forget about them being bigoted, crazy extremists, it was pretty fun."

"That's only because there were a whole gaggle of you folks and only two of them!" I reminded her.

"Don't remind me," she said.

"Of?"

"Just… I mean, we did get beat up on pretty badly on some other occasions. Not really a laughing matter," Kitty said, brushing it off.

"Okay," I said, not saying anything else about it. "So how was it otherwise?"

"Great," Kitty said. "Morph's a real crowd-pleaser," she said, shaking her head jokingly. "I think he just gets all kinds of practice pretending to be someone else that he's just become a total performer, you know? I mean, thank God he didn't try to do a stand-up comedy type thing, but he made a lot of jokes and it was a good talk he gave, before that idiot interrupted."

"Well, that idiot interrupting was the whole point of this set-up," I said.

"I _know_, John!" she said, playfully hitting me. "You're just always so difficult."

"You think I don't know that?" I countered.

Kitty just shook her head in exasperation, and said, "I guess now we just have to wait for them to get an answer out of that guy."

So we waited. And waited. A few days passed and I'm pretty sure that the staff wanted to keep things as quiet as possible, but no way that's going to happen in a school like this. Word gets around no matter what. Even Wolverine himself told me a few details. So far, all we'd learned was that, yes, the Friends of Humanity were planning a larger and attack, and yes, it still hadn't happened and it was still a green light for them. The staff thought that this guy, whose name we learned was Payton, was just trying to hold out until the attack happened, and then there wasn't much else we could do, so they were going to try to press him harder. That was about all I heard, though.

It surprised me a little how much waiting Kitty and I did together. We played cards, talked in her room or my room, and we even took a walk outside the mansion once. It was kind of funny how I couldn't go very far, so it wasn't very scenic, but it was… nice to be outside with her. She said, "I wish we could go there," pointing to the tree line beyond the back gardens of the mansion.

"So go," I told her tepidly.

"Didn't you hear me?" she said, sounding half-annoyed, half-teasing. "I said I wish _we_ could go there."

"Then, I guess that's just too bad for you! Go by yourself!" I said, but I was smiling at her.

"Oh, John," she said, holding her head in her hands. "So difficult." Then she paused and said, "I know what you'd like, though. Let's go make dinner."

So, we went back inside and into the kitchen. It was more like me making dinner and Kitty helping occasionally, but it was fun having some company in there. I'd really gotten used to cooking alone, and I liked it too, but having Kitty there was a welcome change.

Bobby ambled into the kitchen, without Rogue for once, and gave us both a glance. "Hey, Pyromaniac," he said, which I hadn't heard from him in years. When we first met, he started calling me that because he said that in my case, Pyro really was short for a word that ended in "maniac." When he used to call me that, he'd been joking around, but obviously that wasn't the case anymore.

"_What_?" I growled, extremely annoyed. I didn't like him calling me that anymore. I never minded it when we were still… well, when we were still thick as thieves, as Cyclops once called us.

I was so busy being mad at him that I'd turned my back on the stove and didn't notice that the flame on it was growing larger by the second until Kitty was shouting, "John! JOHN! Stop it, or put it out, or _something_!"

I spun around and groaned in frustration, and then I managed to momentarily focus away from being angry. I did manage to reduce the flames, but it was too late – Bobby was already laughing. He pointed at the stove and said, "You have to use low heat with that kind of pan."

"Hey, I'm the cook here," I snapped, irritated.

"Nah," Bobby said. "You're just a pyromaniac."

I couldn't argue with that. Our food was completely burned. "Look, would you just cut it out with the comments, wise guy?" I said to him. I started scraping the contents of the pan into the trash, already intending to start over, and said to Bobby while glaring out of the corner of my eye, "God! You're being a complete ass, you know that? You do realize I'm here to stay? It's going to be a lot easier on both of us if you just put a fucking lid on it once in awhile."

This wiped the grin off of Bobby's face, and he barked out a short laugh. "What, so, you want us to just pretend nothing ever happened, so we can be buddies again? Yeah?"

"I _never_ said I wanted that," I replied through clenched teeth, "just some peace and quiet."

Bobby was silent, and looked at me questioningly.

I slammed the pan back on the stove, and faced him. "Bobby, if we're going to put this behind us, it's going to start with _you_ shutting up once in awhile instead of throwing some taunting remark at me every _single_ fucking time you see me. So I'd like to see you try it."

Kitty was glancing at both of us nervously, almost like she wanted to pretend she wasn't hearing any of this. Finally, Bobby shrugged. He said, "Whatever you say," half-heartedly and left the kitchen.

Kitty gave me a concerned look, and we worked in a stormy silence for a few minutes before she finally said, "You didn't mean that, did you?"

"Mean what?" I asked.

"You said something about you guys putting that behind you…" Kitty started to say, before I cut her off.

"Oh, come _on_!" I yelled. "Please. I didn't say I _wanted_ us to be… well, whatever. Anyone can see it'd make everything hell of a lot easier if we _did_ somehow make up, or something, but it's not going to happen anytime soon. All I was saying was that things would be easier that way, that's all." I finished my sentence a lot more calmly than I'd started it.

Kitty nodded. "Yeah, I get it." Slowly, she ventured, "But you're saying that eventually you might like to make things up with him?"

"I hate him." I laughed. "Bobby's really self-righteous sometimes. I mean, we did get along really well before – things change, that's just the way it is. It's… it's weird though, being back here. Like I belong, even though I don't, really. In some ways it's like we should still be friends but things won't ever be the same. So yeah, I guess I'd rather that we were on speaking terms – you know, _civilly_ – but he's such an ass sometimes that I wouldn't care anyone one way or another." I noticed I'd started to cut my vegetables in increasingly smaller pieces as I was rambling, and slowed down. I let out a long breath, and added, "We used to…" before trailing off.

"Yeah? Used to what?" Kitty asked.

"We both used to have shorter hair back then," I told her.

Kitty snorted and said, "Yeah, okay," accepting my answer.

We changed the subject and talked about the classes she was going to be taking next session, but by the time we were eating, Kitty brought up Bobby one more time. "He believes you then, huh?"

"Who, Bobby? Believes me about what?"

"Well, he just left," Kitty answered. "What I mean is, he didn't really say anything after you said that he needed to stop taunting you if you guys are going to ever stop picking on each other."

"So? What are you trying to say?"

"I'm just saying that he didn't say anything like… 'Yeah, right, you'd never apologize,' or something –"

"Well, that's exactly damn right, I wouldn't!" I assured her.

"I mean, he just seemed to believe you when you said you wanted him to start trying to make things better."

"_Believe_ me? Kitty-cat, I don't lie, and that's my trump card." I paused to take a bite, and then added, "He's still an ass."

Meanwhile, Cyclops, who couldn't be as forceful as Wolverine, had resorted to scouring the papers and other sources for attack rumors. Payton still hadn't given up any more information except that he hinted that there was still some time before the terrorist attack, so the X-Men had relaxed a little bit but were still pressing him every day for more.

I myself didn't have anything to do, and Kitty, nearing the end of her summer break, was trying to prepare for her new classes. She did something that I felt was really uncharacteristic of her one day. It started as a simple conversation in her room one late night and ended up somewhere entirely different.

Kitty and I had been talking about all kinds of random things that night, so it was a little uncalled for when all of a sudden, she said out of the blue, "I'm glad I got to know you better, John."

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to reply sarcastically or not, so I went with the safe answer, "Yeah."

"Look, I know you're here because you've done some things that weren't always on the right side, but in my opinion it's actually working. You're here and you're seeing things differently, and you're trusted."

"I'm not trusted, Kitty, not by anyone!" I said, convinced she was being stupid.

"Wrong. I trust you. I let you in here because I believe we could get along," Kitty said flat out.

I took a figurative step back. She what? I was someone who had killed people before. She didn't know what she was talking about, I thought. "Well, according to the people who put me here, that's a bad idea, Kitty. And according to me, too."

"I'm not a kid anymore, John. I'm not the girl you left behind when you joined Magneto. I make up my own mind," Kitty insisted.

I looked at her straight in the eye, and she never wavered. I finally sighed, and said, "If you're waiting for me to reciprocate…"

"No, no," she said. "I told you, I make up my own mind. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to basing my judgments on what you say. Maybe so, but not necessarily."

I thought she spoke rather hastily. I repeated, "Well, if you're waiting for me to reciprocate – I trust you, too, Kitty, but I suspect it may just be due to the fact that you're an unusually trustworthy person."

She smiled at that, and then we returned to what we were talking about before her little outburst. Kitty had been talking about her trip to New York City the weekend before, and said, "Oh, gosh, I wish you could go."

I shrugged to show I didn't care. "I've been there."

"How many times?" Kitty said.

"I don't know. Not too much. I haven't been there too much, but yeah, I've seen it."

"You really need to take a look around when you're there, though, because there's just so much you can miss."

"Tell me about it in three years," I said, reclining back on her bed.

Kitty, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, said, "Are you a city person?"

"Are _you_?"

She giggled and said, "No, no, don't change the subject. But I kind of am."

"Well. I kind of am too. I told you before, I lived in a suburb. But it wasn't too far from the city."

"You lived right outside of Sydney, right?"

"Technically Fairfield was part of Sydney, but, yeah, you could say that," I told her.

"Really?" Kitty said. "I… I guess I don't really know too much about Australia. You should tell me about it sometime."

"Sometime," I said, looking at the ceiling.

"Well," she said, smiling, "it's not like you're doing much these days."

"Thanks for reminding me," I replied sarcastically. "That just killed any points you had with me." I glared and turned away from her.

But Kitty wasn't one to be deterred. She said, "I had points? Aw, come on, John – you have to tell me about where you lived, because you won't be doing anything else otherwise."

"I don't _have_ to do anything, Kitty, except for sit here in the school and rot," I said, matching her teasing tone.

She just smiled and gave me a smack. I don't know what it is that makes me give in to her, but I just groaned and said, "Well, there's not much to say, really. Nothing too interesting."

"Now, I know you have _something_ interesting to say!" Kitty insisted.

"What do you want to know?"

"Hmm," she said. "Just… tell me what it is you liked about living there."

"What I liked?" All of a sudden I was reminded of the way my parents had been strained because of me, and how they wanted me to leave that place, and I was completely ready to just tell her that I hated it, hated everything about it. But then I stopped myself. And I realized that it wasn't true. The John who had lived there with his parents had really loved Sydney, loved that city. So instead of complaining, I told her, "There were a lot of things I liked."

She let me pause, and I continued, "I guess I really liked the central city district. And the Art Gallery of NSW – a really nice sandstone building pretty close to the harbor."

"You liked an art gallery?" Kitty asked incredulously.

"I don't know if I really appreciated too much of the stuff in there, but it really was a good, quiet place. I'd go to some of the coffee shops in front of it and write. Let's see… Hyde Park in the city center is pretty cool too because of the Archibald Fountain. It has St. Mary's Cathedral as a backdrop. I used to just sit there sometimes. Heh – in the morning they'll ring the church bells and you can hear them while you're sitting on the park bench suspiciously eyeing the ibis who you know is after your cheese sandwich. We had an ibis problem." I shook a fist in mock anger.

Kitty's eyes were growing wider and wider. "An _ibis_ problem! Oh my God, John, I'm pretty sure I've never even seen one before in my life. Maybe in a zoo. Definitely never up close!"

"Oh yeah," I nodded. "All over the place."

"Wow. See, I told you – there's stuff you wouldn't think is that interesting that I totally never would have guessed at."

"I suppose," I conceded. I don't think I'd ever really told anyone at Xavier's School these kind of details, but now that I started, I found more and more things to say. I could keep going. So I told her, "Oh, then there's also Domain Park, only a few minutes away from Hyde Park, but it has broader grassy areas so they usually have huge concerts there. But when they're not throwing concerts I liked to go wander there, too. You'd be surrounded by massive trees that are hundreds of years old."

Kitty seemed to be enjoying my descriptions. She paused for a second, maybe expecting me to go on, and then said, "What about Central Park? That sounds like you'd like it there, too."

"Oh, I haven't been there much," I admitted. "I think I passed by it once or twice."

"Oh, no!" Kitty exclaimed. Then she sighed and said, "I wish so badly I could show you all the things in the city. You told me about your home, and I could tell you all about Chicago, but it would be so much easier if I could just show you the home I have here. You _have_ to go."

"Oh, yeah. So not happening, Kitty-cat," I said with a roll of my eyes.

Instead of teasing back, she looked at me seriously, and said, "What did you mean when you said you trusted me, earlier?"

A little caught off guard, I said, "I… just think you've been some pretty good company lately." I shrugged and said, "Can't imagine you doing anything horrible to me, that's all, unless I went back to where I was before."

"And would you do that?" she asked.

"If I were out of here, you mean?" I choked out a laugh. "I couldn't. I could never. I already made that decision, Kitty-cat. When I gave up a couple of Magneto's hiding locations in exchange for house arrest instead of prison," I said a little sadly.

"You could be with us eventually and…" Kitty started to say. But I was already on a roll and it must be the writer in me, but when I get started, I just keep going.

"God knows I'd never join the X-Men. You know, you X-Men and the Brotherhood – you all believe in some of the same things, you know that? You could work together, you just can't _work_ together," I said, with a gesture of meshing my hands together for some emphasis. "I mean, granted, not all of the beliefs are the same. And that's why I could never be an X-Man either, but, like it or not, I'm here and I'll have to listen to their blah, blah, blah day in and day out, and I'll take it. I really will. You know I hated it here at first. But I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I'm starting to learn that some things you can't always take for granted, including a roof over your head, having your own clothes –" I smiled at Kitty for that. "Oh, and starting over. Hell if I know what I'm doing when I get out of here. But it's going to be something that keeps me out of jail."

"Now would be a good time for me to start believing you when you say you don't lie, right, John?" Kitty asked apprehensively.

"I don't lie," I affirmed.

"John… I need you to know something."

I didn't like the sound of that, but I said, "Okay."

"I need you to know that I want you to have a good, clean second chance once your arrest is over." Oh. That wasn't so bad.

"You're not the only one," I replied.

"You too, then, huh?" she asked.

I sighed and then resigned, "_Yes_, Kitty, me too. Don't get smart with me and tell me I'm a good person for feeling that way. No one wants to screw up their life, it's just that sometimes they've already screwed it up before they realize what they've done. I'm one of the few that gets to give it another try."

"Wrong again," Kitty said smugly. "It does too make you a good person."

"Kitty…" I said warningly. "That's not something I really want to think about right now."

"Well, I just want to ask you not to do anything jeopardize your chances at another life once you get out of here."

I gave her a look. "All right, Miss Counselor."

Kitty had been building up to something, but at that, she gave up altogether and told me straight out, "What if I told you I could take you to see the city for tonight?"

"But you can't," I said flatly.

"Three strikes, John," she said softly, shaking her head. "Wrong again." She spoke slowly.

I frowned and stared at her more closely. "What are you talking about?"

"John… if I said I could take you to the city tonight, would you come back with me? Would you run away and leave?" Kitty said even more slowly. "That's why I said I wanted you not to ruin your chances at starting again."

"I… Kitty, you can't tempt me like that. You _know_ I want to be out of here."

"And that's part of the reason why I want to do this for you! You… you don't deserve this, to me. In all this time the only thing you've shown me is that you're an amazingly nice and funny person, and I wish you could see something outside of this campus, something that means a lot to me."

I laughed at her and said, "Oh, good God. Don't worry about me, Kitty-cat, I didn't take you to Sydney, I told you about it. And yes, I do deserve this. I should be serving prison time instead. But I'm here and I'm not supposed to, as you said, ruin that. Isn't that right?"

Kitty shrank back, and then all of a sudden she straightened and gave me a confident look. "Just for tonight."

A smile was starting to play on my lips. "Just for tonight, then? A taste of the outside world, and then I'm back in here?"

"Exactly right," she grinned. "I trust you, John. If you run…"

"I won't," I told her. I was entirely too curious about what she had planned.

"Your trump card, huh?" she said.

"Yeah. Kitty, I won't run." I broke into a smile. "I'm just too damn curious about what you're going to do!"

Kitty gave me a puppy pout, and said, "And you don't want to get me in trouble, do you? Especially since I have this?" Kitty held up my shark Zippo lighter.

"Oh, all right!" I said, pushing her away. "And I won't get you in trouble. How the hell did you get that anyway? Goddammit, don't answer that," I said, reminding myself that it was a stupid question to ask a girl who could walk through walls.

Kitty smiled and we shared a knowing look. I would run away with or without that lighter if I really wanted to, but the two of us were playing under the pretense that she had my lighter hostage, I said, "I promise."

Kitty touched my foot lightly, and I brought it towards her. She held the thin metal band between her fingers, and said, "All I need to do is make sure that I keep the electronic part solid so that it doesn't go haywire."

Then she gently pulled the non-electronic part right through my ankle, leaving behind a pleasant tingling feeling.


	14. Chapter 14

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author: **Iris, '**sleepallday**' at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.   
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**

* * *

Chapter 14: "So have you been to a place like this?"**

Kitty placed the metal sensor in my hand, and I just stared at it in my palm for a minute. That horrible little thing had done nothing but change locations on my body, but somehow it made a hell of a difference. I could actually _feel_ the weight being lifted off my foot. Kitty was looking at me expectantly, and at first I couldn't say anything. But then, I broke into a huge smile at her. I jumped off that bed like – well, like I hadn't had a reason to be excited about something in _forever_. At the same time, I grabbed her hand, pulling her up off the bed too, and said, "Let's get _out_ of here!"

Kitty laughed and said, "I was thinking, and, um, it'd probably be better for you to put that thing somewhere in your room. I mean – I'm not sure who would really be watching it if the alarm didn't go off, but if someone is and doesn't see you moving, they wouldn't think it was weird if it was in your room."

"Yeah. You wait here. I'll be right back," I told her.

"Meet me in the garage," she told me.

I got to my room and stuffed the anklet under my mattress, and then tried to look inconspicuous walking to the mansion's garage, even though no one was around since it was late. When I got there, Kitty was sitting the driver's seat of her car with the door open.

"I don't want us getting caught," she said, looking nervous for the first time since convincing me to go out. "Would you mind getting on the floor of the back seat? As soon as we're far enough I'll tell you so you can sit up front." She was biting on her nails as she spoke.

I glanced around, and then said, "Yeah, okay, but don't worry so much. You know who they're worried about breaking out? That Payton guy. They won't be thinking about me right now." I opened the back seat door and climbed in.

Kitty turned around and smiled, and as she shut her door, said, "Well, then, let's go!"

Kitty was still looking jumpy, and kept nervously looking over her shoulders as she pulled out of the garage and through the mansion's gates, but from my limited view in the bottom of the back seat, I thought she was starting to relax as we got further away.

"New York City's a bit of a drive from here, so most of the time we take the train, but it's not so bad," she said, when we were a mile or so out. "That is, if you don't mind long drives."

"Can I come out now?" I asked.

Kitty turned briefly, and said, "Yeah, come on up! Sit," and patted the seat next to her. I crawled over to the front and plopped down.

"Seat belt!" Kitty said sternly, pointing at me.

"Concussions and other car accident related injuries are the least of my problems if we're caught," I told her, but I put it on.

I turned on her radio and flipped through some stations. I guess we were going to be on the road for awhile. I said, "So, I guess if I said 'It's clear sailing from here,' that would totally jinx this, right?"

Kitty gave me a look with wide eyes, and said, "Oh yes. Don't say that. And you can't say 'It's all uphill from here,' either."

"How about 'The rest is gravy'?"

"No way! We're dead for sure!" Kitty exclaimed.

I grinned as I looked out my window, and said, "Well, then, we can settle for, 'It ain't over til the fat lady sings.'"

Kitty rounded a corner and looked at me with a smile. "That I could go for."

It was mostly a quiet drive the rest of the way, with some scattered conversation and a lull from the radio. But as we got closer to the city, Kitty started getting more excited, and she started rambling. "Oh gosh, I can't believe we're actually _getting_ there. I don't even know where to start. I'd have an easier time deciding if we _did_ take the train. We could get out at Penn or Grand Central Station, both interesting in their own right… And if we took a bus they'd let out into Port Authority, which is… not the best intro to the city, except that it lets out into Times Square. What do you want to see first?"

This made me burst out laughing, and I replied, "Kitty-cat, _you're_ the one who dragged me out here because you had – oh my gosh, _so_ much stuff to show me!" doing a horrible imitation of her.

Kitty gave me a glare, and said, "Fine, fine. I'll think of something."

Then about five minutes later, Kitty declared that we were officially in the city and parked inside of a parking structure. The structure was very dimly lit, and I couldn't see what was outside, but Kitty said, "Hurry up," so I followed her.

The instant I stepped outside with her I felt like I was being swept away. I saw plenty of lights and buildings on the drive over here, but not like this. This was up close and in my face, people brushing past me, and moving streaks of light that were cars and taxis, and pulsing beats of music from stores that were open late. The city at night was not something I had really seen before and I was loving it.

Even though it was past midnight by the time we arrived, there were still tons of people walking the streets, which didn't surprise me too much. The City That Never Sleeps, right? Kitty and I made our way through the people, and I let her go on ahead of me as my steps slowed. I couldn't help it – I was overwhelmed. No more Xavier's mansion. No more metal anklet… at least not for a few hours.

I pulled up the right leg of my pants and looked at my anklet-free foot, and just threw my head back and laughed. I was stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk – not such a great idea when the street is so crowded! I was just simply standing there, craning my neck up at some of the high buildings, and taking in the fact that I was breathing completely different air. I was staring at the twinkling lights of the buildings when all of a sudden I remembered that metal anklet being welded onto my foot – how the hell was I so… so _happy_ right now?  
When not so long ago, I thought I'd lost it all? I wondered if I was on my way to something better.

Then Kitty pulled me out of my trance. I could hear her faintly yelling, "John! JOHN! Where did you go? What are you doing back there? Come on, I almost lost you!"

I took one last glance at a high-rise apartment, wishing I could live there instead, and then said to Kitty, "On my way."

She glared at me, and grabbed the sleeve of my jacket to pull me along, and said, "_Don't_ get lost! God, you scared me for a minute there! There is absolutely _no_ way I'm going to be able to explain why you're gone and that anklet is still at the school."

"I know, I know, don't worry! I won't get lost, Kitty –"

"No, I mean _don't_ get lost! Don't!"

I rolled my eyes at her and said, "I'm right _here_, Kitty-cat. Jeez. I'm not going anywhere without you tonight."

"Uh-huh. Right," Kitty said. "You know, out of context, that would sound really weird."

I gave her some fisheye, and said, "Come on. Are we going somewhere or not?"

Kitty smiled and said, "Absolutely. And I know exactly where I want to go first. This is one of my favorite places in the city."

She refused to tell me where we were going, so all I did was follow her, but it wasn't hard to because we walked slowly. I wanted to look at everything. Being here at night wasn't a bad thing at all – there was still tons of activity but less people than the daytime, so it was perfect for me. There weren't too many street vendors, but some people were carrying shopping bags, some were by themselves listening to their earphones, some were getting in and out of taxis. There were some people sitting at outdoor tables of coffee shops. I noticed that it was actually getting a little steeper as we walked.

Finally, Kitty and I reached a tall hotel. It wasn't huge, but it looked pretty fancy. It wasn't a name that I recognized. Above the glass doors, it said _The Silver Lining_ in fancy script, and there were lights still on in the main lobby. Through the doors I could see that there was a receptionist and a few people sitting in the couches that were off to one side of the lobby. It was fairly empty, since it was night, but I was glad Kitty hadn't taken me to a place that was completely deserted, which would've creeped me out a little bit.

"This is it?" I said, when we were at the top of stairs leading to the front doors.

"This is it," Kitty confirmed.

"One of your favorite places in the city is this place, huh?" I asked, as we pushed open the doors, getting a welcome from the receptionist.

We nodded in acknowledgement, and Kitty said, "Actually, make a correction – one of my favorite places in the city at _night_." She led me to the elevators and took us up to the second to top floor, and it was number fifty-six.

When the elevator doors opened, I was looking at the night sky. The elevator opened up into a hallway, but it was a narrow one that led directly to a pair of glass doors that went to a balcony. "What's this all about?" I asked Kitty curiously.

"Remember earlier? I said I can't tell you. I couldn't because I have to show you. Come on!"

Then Kitty pulled me by the sleeve out onto the balcony, where a crisp breeze was blowing. It was much colder even in the summer night now that we were higher up. Kitty rushed over to the edge of the balcony to a thick, tile wall that was about chest-high, but I took my time.

Kitty said, "The floor above us is the penthouse, of course, and this entire floor is just like this – a balcony." As I walked away from the doors, the city below slowly came into view, and I had to draw in a breath.

"Kitty…" I finally said. "This is…" I couldn't even finish my sentence.

She smiled knowingly, not even needing me to tell her what I was going to say, and then said, "Isn't it… beautiful?"

I could remember a time when I would've given a snort of derision hearing a girl like Kitty saying something like that. But I didn't think _anyone_ – least of all me, standing right there beside her – could deny her words.

"It's beautiful, Kitty. It's beautiful."

The city sprawled on and on. The cars were just blurs of light, and there were towers that sparkled light, and there were people who were just ovals of hair, and lights turned on and off, and the whole thing created an effect that was so dynamic and bright that the skyline above the city glowed. The night sky was not black. I could see the clouds and they swirled with yellows and reds.

I remembered the day that I sat on the roof of Xavier's School with Warren Worthington, and how the two of us had looked over at a city. It wasn't anything like this, of course. It was a nice view, but as far as I was concerned there was absolutely _nothing_ of interest in Westchester County – a quiet, country-club sort of area, with lots of empty spaces, which is perfect for the school. And that sort of view had its beauties too, but I was too busy being awed by the cityscape that Kitty had just shown me to appreciate that other one.

There was a distant stream of noise from the city below, but it was quiet enough and peaceful up there on that balcony of The Silver Lining. When Kitty spoke, her voice was soft, not spoiling the quiet. "So have you been to a place like this?"

I didn't answer her for a few minutes. I just let myself enjoy the sound of her voice against the wind that was whipping our hair back, and then I said, "Somewhere high up, where you can see buildings? Kitty-cat, I don't think something like that is all that rare, but I have to admit to you, no. Not like this."

Kitty smiled at that, and then leaned on the tile balcony. I put my hands on my pocket, feeling the plastic lighter that was in there. Kitty had my Zippo, but I'm never without _some_ lighter, at least one, but sometimes more than one. I was carrying a cheap plastic one, and drew it out of my pocket. I started playing with it as I leaned my chest over the balcony, and said, "Wanna see something, Kitty?"

"Um… don't burn anything down, John," she said, eyeing my hands.

I laughed, and said, "I figure we're high up enough that no one's really going to see this. Well… maybe some of the people in the hotel, but they won't know what it is."

"Why wouldn't they?" Kitty asked, but the words had barely left her mouth before I gathered a large ball of fire into my hand.

I let the ball rage in the palm of my hand as I calmly returned the lighter to my pocket with the other hand, and then, suddenly, with an immense burst of power I forced the fire to go streaming off into the sky like a rocket. It was so quick that Kitty jumped back in surprise. When the stream was high enough, it flew open into a flaming fireworks display bursting with an audible crackle. I wanted that firework to scream across the night.

Jubilee wasn't the only one who could throw fireworks. I could too – just, mine weren't as colorful.

When I turned around to look at Kitty, she was staring at the sky with widened eyes, and her mouth was open with the corners slightly turned up. "Wow," she said simply.

"See, they'll just think someone's shooting off Roman candles or something," I told her nonchalantly. I even shrugged for effect.

Kitty was still staring in wonderment and said, "John, that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen you do with your powers. I could never be that flashy." I couldn't tell if there was a hint of jealousy in her voice or not.

"Oh, I don't know about that. It would look cool and pretty Superman-ish if someone was shooting at you and just phased the bullets right through you."

Kitty looked at me and said, "How much thought have you given that?"

I shrugged again and said, "Lots of people can do cooler stuff than I can." I didn't want to look like I didn't like being a mutant, though, so I quickly added, "Not that I don't appreciate having this," and tossed around another ball of fire.

"Ready, Kitty?" I said, throwing two more streams of fire up into the night sky at once, and creating two more fireworks of real, honest-to-goodness fire.

Kitty was no less impressed the second time, exclaiming at the fireworks and smiling. I had to smile, myself. It had been a long time since someone had actually _enjoyed_ me using my powers. The two of us were laughing as we leaned over the balcony, staring at the stars, which were more visible from the second-to-highest floor of The Silver Lining than the street.

We were quiet for a while, and then I said, "You know what's really weird?"

"What?"

"Have you ever… well… before you ever found out about your powers, did anything ever happen to you, or did you think anything that was somehow related to your phasing?" I asked, stammering a little bit.

"What do you mean?" Kitty asked.

"I mean… before you knew anything about the fact that you could walk through stuff, did you ever think about it, or something?"

"I'm still not really sure what you're trying to ask me. What were you saying is really weird, anyway?" Kitty said.

Looking back at the sky, I said, "Well, before I found my powers, when I was a _lot_ younger, actually – just like, a little kid – I used to think that the stars were fire."

Kitty looked like she was trying not to laugh, and then said, "But… the stars are _white_, John."

I gave her a teasing look of anger, and said, "Hey, I was a kid! Do people question kids having imaginary friends, or the floor being made of lava, or whatever? So I thought the stars were fire!"

"Technically they kind of are," Kitty conceded. "But probably not the kind of fire that you thought they were."

"Yes. You are correct," I told her in a grating voice. "I thought it was the same kind of stuff in the fireplace, except more like, white-hot."

"Anyway," I went on, "when I finally learned I could _control_ fire… I thought it was weird of me way back when, to think that."

Kitty said, "I'm pretty sure when I was a kid I would've loved to walk through walls. Actually… there was this one playground that I went to all the time in my neighborhood, and I used to climb trees all the time. Getting up was the fun part, but once I was up there, I used to get really scared when I looked down. There were always so many branches and I thought I'd scratch myself too much trying to get down and I wished I could just float right through them back to the ground. So… I guess, yes, to your question."

"I'm not the only weird one, then," I told her.

"Definitely not," she said.

"We should go climb some trees sometime. Now you can just phase through the branches," I said.

"Well… I could, but I'm not scared anymore," Kitty reminded me.

"I'm not scared anymore either… of leaving that place," I said, knowing I wouldn't have to explain what I meant. I draped my arms over the ledge and said, "I have the whole world to look forward to."


	15. Chapter 15

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author: Iris,****sleepall-day** at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Chapter 15: "What I mean is – it's just one of those inevitable things."**

I tried to shift away from the cheesy moment by loudly playing with my lighter, but it wasn't as heavy as my Zippo.

"How about giving me back my other lighter?" I asked Kitty, who was still leaning over the balcony.

"When we get back," she said. I guess she was still afraid I'd run.

"All right," I said understandingly. She looked so peaceful, looking out over the still-busy city, that I felt bad pulling her away from it.

I gently shook her arm and said, "Want to head back now?" Kitty turned to at me, and the two of us gave the city below one last look before we wordlessly headed back to the elevator.

We did say we were going to head back, but it was agreed silently that we would wander the streets a little longer. The city was beginning to empty, and the two of us did some late-night sight-seeing. I think I even put my arm around her a couple of times, like when we passed through the edge of Central Park. Even more surprising was that she didn't stop me.

When Kitty started to yawn, we headed back to her car. I was opening the passenger door as I said, "I can drive back part of the way, Kitty. You look so dead."

"I can do it," she said, yawning again. That's when I walked around the front of the car, grabbed her by the shoulders, and walked her over to the passenger side.

"Kitty, come on," I said when she protested. "Get some rest, okay?"

"All right," she grumbled. "But I'm not falling asleep."

She didn't have to tell me why. I don't care what she said earlier tonight in her room; she didn't trust me to not make a run for it. But as I started up her car and started the drive back, I had no doubts. I mean, did I want to leave the school and my being imprisoned behind? Of _course_ I did. And of course I was thinking about it. Who wouldn't be? But what was I going to do? Run off somewhere, only to have to beg for a job so I wouldn't starve? Sure, at least until someone recognized me and I was caught again, this time in for a ferociously worse punishment. Or until Magneto found me again and killed me for betraying him. Yeah.

I confirmed some directions with Kitty and drove back to the mansion.

I laughed to myself as I drove, thinking, besides – leave? There would be no kitchen practically going up in smoke and flames every time someone pissed me off, no Shirtless Wonder, no girls snickering _about_ the fact that he was called the Shirtless Wonder, no Cyclops destroying inanimate objects in a rage, no Bobby Drake to annoy. There would be no Kitty trying to make me somewhat more sociable, and even I had to admit that it was working. Here I was, driving her home from a night out, and no matter how much I wanted to make my own rules, I was doing what she wanted me to do. I wasn't sure if I quite wanted to put my finger on why yet, even if I knew already.

I glanced over at Kitty, who looked back at me. She rolled down a window and looked so cute leaning back. Her eyelids were drooping, and by the time we had reached the more country-like roads of Westchester – I could smell the trees from the open window – she was asleep. I reached over and patted the top of her head, saying to myself, "I knew you couldn't stay awake."

When we were about ten minutes out from the mansion, I pulled over to the side of the road and shook Kitty awake. "Hey, Kitty-cat. Get up. Get up."

"Hmm?" Kitty said sleepily, rubbing her eyes. Then she sat up with a startled jump, and sharply breathed in. "Where…"

"Hey, it's okay. We're not far from the school. Look," I said. I wasn't mad at her for thinking I'd driven in completely the opposite direction, or something. Hell, I expected her to think so. "Just waking you up so you can drive the rest of the way."

Kitty was awake now, and she did take a look around. She relaxed, gave me a funny look, and slowly said, "Thanks, John. All right."

Kitty took the wheel, and I returned to the bottom of the backseat. Kitty pulled into the dimly lit garage, and said, "Wait here for a sec," before phasing through pretty much everything – the car, another car, and whatever was in front of the garage walls.

She returned a minute later, whispering, "No one's around. Come on."

Kitty took my hand, which she'd never done before, and when I stared at her, she said, "The garage door squeaks," by way of explanation.

Okay, when I said that it felt kind of nice and tingly when Kitty phased the anklet through my foot – _definitely_ because it was small. Kitty phased us both through the wall and it felt like I'd just plunged into an ice-cold pool. It didn't feel cold, but it was the same kind of sudden shock. "Good God!" I said. "Feels like there's a million little crawly things all over me."

Kitty grinned and said, "You get used to it after while. It starts feeling less weird."

We stood there in the hallway for a second, and then she dropped my hand awkwardly. She followed me to my room, where I dug under the mattress for the anklet. I didn't really know what to say, so I just said "Here," and sort of shoved it at her.

Kitty took it gingerly, and then carefully put it back onto my foot. Then the two of us sighed and just leaned back on the bed. "Whew. We made it," Kitty breathed.

"I think so," I said. "Could be that someone noticed I was missing though, and we'll both get in trouble in the morning…"

"Augh, just don't say that," she said, clutching her face. "We'll be fine, I think… I hope."

Exhausted, I patted her on the back as a goodbye, and said, yawning, "Goodnight, Kitty. Thanks so much for tonight."

"It was fun," she said.

"Maybe we'll do it again sometime."

Kitty laughed and said, "If we survive in the morning."

She ruffled my already-messy hair, and then with a quick "Goodnight," she left.

As soon as she'd gone through the wall, I collapsed on the bed and heaved a long sigh. It'd been weeks since I'd stepped anywhere away from the mansion. The last things I remember thinking before I fell asleep were that there had been no sleep that night – the sky was tinged with purple, already starting to look less dark – and that I could hardly believe that the girl I once thought was one of the most straight-laced kids at Xavier's School, someone I used to tease, had broken me out.

I was so busy trying to act like I didn't care about her, that I didn't care about the things she was showing me, that I didn't get to really look at her tonight. It all happened so fast. I remembered the blurs that the cars had become once Kitty and I were high up on the hotel balcony and felt like the entire night had been like that. We'd been out the whole night and it still felt too short. I _needed_ to do this again. It's like I closed my eyes for a second and it was over.

We did, in fact, survive the next morning. For some reason I was up early even though I hadn't slept much. Guess I was just anxious to see if anyone had noticed we were gone. I woke up, and found that I was clutching my lighter – no, wait. It wasn't the plastic one I'd used to make the fireworks last night. It was the shark Zippo. Now when had _that_ happened?

As soon as I changed, I tucked the lighter into my pocket and went outside for a walk. I reached the private cemetery that was on the very edge of the area I was allowed to be on, and noticed there was one other person out there. It was Cyclops.

I imagined he must be looking at Dr. Grey's tombstone, but he was looking at his own, which was right next to hers. I approached him as quietly as I could.

"Kind of like finding your name on a bunch of boxes in the basement, isn't it?" I spoke up.

Cyclops jumped at my first words, and then turned around, with a weird look. "What?"

"Never mind," I said with a grin. I was smiling more at my own memories than the look on his face though.

I noticed he was trying to discreetly wipe away some tears. "It's just… not right that this should be here," he said, indicating his tombstone. "Not while Jean's is here, and she's really gone."

I just kept quiet, until Cyclops continued, "It's just not right, is it?"

Sensitive topic or not, I said, "What are you asking me for?"

I guess I'd lost my touch, because instead of being offended, Cyclops just laid a hand on my shoulder and started just rambling at me.

"You're right. It's just… I've invested so much into this place. And she was such a huge part of it. It's like everything I worked for was destroyed when she came back – she was there but so gone at the same time. I just got so sick of caring. Right before I fell unconscious under the water, I felt the Professor trying to help me, and yes, he did save me, but he couldn't do anything to save Jean. That's why I didn't come back right away. Just wasn't ready to start caring again. And… you're still young, John. You know… she… we were going to get married. So I guess that's not really something you'd be much for talking to about, huh?"

Good God, to hell with that man. I'd never forgive him for making me feel sorry for him. Ugh. Didn't he have someone else to have pity parties with?

"I couldn't tell you what that feels like, Mr. Summers," I said, since that's what I used to call him in class. "Life and death – _they're_ married to each other, they say. It just happens that way."

He gave me another funny look, but I must've struck a nerve because a single tear was falling from behind his sunglasses.

I shook my head at myself. What I'd just said had been a line from the poem I wrote years ago, the one that won an award. I really don't know what was going on with me, why I couldn't just say something stupid or sarcastic and walk off. And I don't even know why I was thinking about poetry so early in the morning. Oh well. I guess I just couldn't be mad at him when he was like this.

I cleared my throat and said, "What I mean is – it's just one of those inevitable things."

I stepped back so I could leave, but he stopped me by saying, "I know what you meant, John." Then he unexpectedly lifted his sunglasses, pointing his red optic beam straight at his own tombstone. It exploded immediately, leaving a smoky pile of rubble, and I jumped back as some of the tiny pieces came raining down.

The remains of the stone pieces were still crumbling onto the ground, and I said dryly once the noise settled, "I can just see the headline now: _One-Eyed Vandal Strikes Again, Inanimate Object Death Toll Rises to Two_."

"I feel better," Cyclops said simply. Then he added, "I hardly think an entire room counts as an inanimate object, though."

I just shrugged.

"By the way. Jason Payton's finally talked," Cyclops said.

"Are you serious?" I gaped.

"Yeah. Gave us a date – three days from now."

I said hesitantly, "Do you believe him?" because I sure didn't.

"Not particularly," Cyclops said casually. "But it's all we've got so far."

"Can _I_ try talking to him?" I suggested.

Cyclops scoffed, "Uh, no. Storm would have a fit."

"I thought you were head teacher below the Professor."

"Yeah, no, not since I _died_, remember?" Cyclops said in the most sarcastic tone he could manage, pointing at the crumbly pieces of tombstone on the ground. "And if you want to know the truth, it was probably decided a long time before that happened that I wasn't going to be the head anymore."

I ignored the last comment and crossed my arms, looking at the mess on the ground again. "You're cleaning that up, you know."

"Since when did you care?" Cyclops asked, but his tone was friendly.

"Since Storm's been sticking me on clean up duty every chance she gets. She thinks it builds character. Me, I think she brought me here in the first place as an extra pair of hands."

Cyclops chuckled at that and said, "Well, don't be so hard on yourself. I always thought you were a good kid to have around. Misguided, maybe. Do you remember what I said to you when you first came here, John?"

"Uh… not to call the Professor 'Wheels'?"

Cyclops slapped his forehead and said, "That was a lost cause once Wolverine got here. No, that's not what I meant."

I furrowed my eyebrows in thought, and offered, "Oh, that calling you 'One-Eye' isn't that funny. Which it kind of is, by the way."

He sighed loudly and said, "No, not that either, and it isn't! I was actually talking about when we had that chat about your power."

"Oh… that."

"Yes, that – and I hoped that you would remember it, John," he chided.

"You told me that I was a destructive individual that needed a good sense of discipline," I reminded him.

Cyclops cocked his head at that, and said, "Huh. Good memory. Well, yes, I guess I _did_ say that. But I remember that I told you that I liked your power – the ability to control fire, wow. I mean, it's so destructive, in some ways it could be even more destructive than my own power, but you can do so much more. I just saw this spark in you, John. I always do when I find a student that I think has so much for potential for helping people."

"Uh-huh," I mumbled, not wanting another lecture.

"What I said was, you're already good at setting the fires. Now we're here to help you learn to put out the fires, and figure out _when_ to start them and _when_ to stop them."

I nodded at him, looking at the ground. "I remember that. But did you mean that literally or figuratively?"

He laughed, and said, "Both."

"I'm a more literal kind of guy, Cyclops."

"Tell that to Peter," he replied. "Poor Peter's new nickname is spreading like… well, like something you set on fire, John. At least he seems to like it."

"Oh, come on," I said, rolling my eyes. "How come every time you hear motivational slogans like, 'It only takes one person to make a difference,' or whatever, it's never about something dumb like what I did?"

Cyclops just laughed at me, and shook his head. "It wasn't dumb. You just _don't_ know what you're capable of doing. You are a fire starter, and I see good things coming from you."

Okay. It was starting to get way too corny for me. Time to put a stop to it. This was exactly the reason why the two of us never could have conversations that were too lengthy. "Are we forgetting who actually went off and joined Magneto?" I reminded him calmly. "Because, there are plenty of people around who remember, and they can always give you a refresher."

Then all Cyclops did was give me a nod, and said, "You'll see."

I left before we could get into any more conversation, and ran back to my room. The thing that had stuck to my mind the most about what Cyclops and I talked about was the random piece of poetry I'd thrown out there. I don't think I really realized how much I missed writing until just now. I dug through my drawers until I found an old notebook I used to keep little ideas in, and started writing about my stay at the mansion and anything else I could come up with.

Since I hadn't gotten much sleep, I took a nap after writing several pages in the journal. I was awakened by a frantic pounding on my door.

Nobody really came by my room except for Kitty. In fact, it's pretty clear to most of the mansion's residents that I hate visitors, so it was probably her. I sleepily rolled over and called out, "Just come in."

"I can't. It's locked."

That made me sit up in my bed. What the hell! That was Bobby's voice. "Read the sign, dumbass," I told him.

"Come on, Pyromaniac, just open up the damn door," he said, sounding a little less annoyed than I imagined he would be.

"Go. Away. Bobby," I said, holding up a piece of paper I didn't need and setting it on fire. I shoved the paper until the door.

"_Jo-ohn_! Damn it!" he shouted, and then I could hear a thumping outside my door. I'm sure he could've just used his powers to put it out, but I must've made him mad enough to resort to stamping on it. Bobby keeps his head level about so many big things like split-second battle decisions that he can't keep his temper about the little things. It's funny.

He then sent an icy breeze underneath the doorframe, which made me stop laughing. I growled loudly, and then threw myself at the door, shouting at it, "What? _What_ is so _important_!"

I could hear that Bobby was standing directly on the other side. "There might be an attack on the school, and you need to be kept safe along with everybody else, you maniac!"

"Oh, come _on_, calm the hell down," I snapped. "Like that guy could possibly be telling the truth."

"Do you want us to take any chances!" he snapped back.

"We'll be fine," I said nonchalantly.

Bobby scoffed loudly, and then said, "Well, if you think you know any better, then why don't you find out where the terrorists are attacking? Because that's what they are, you know. They actually do mean business despite what _you_ might think!"

"Bobby, honestly, do you even care what happens to me?" I said. My voice was getting calmer as his was getting more frantic.

Bobby ignored my last statement and just whined, "Just come out, okay? Come on, man. They want to talk to us about new emergency protocols and safety procedures, okay?"

I decided not to dignify him with any more answers.

Bobby was silent for a minute, but I could tell he hadn't left yet. I let him wait. He finally gave in and said, "Aw, come on, you maniac. Come on." It was probably the closest he'd ever get to answering my question.

I'm pretty sure it was mostly out of concern for my own safety, but I quietly got up and unlocked the door. "Yes?" I said.

Bobby gave a really quick grin in the corner of his mouth, and then got rid of it right away. "Most of the older students are meeting with staff later. All this info's going to be given to everyone, though."

"Yeah, so what's going on?"

"Like I said, there might be an attack on the school. Payton finally leaked the info that it's going to be in three days and gave some pretty heavy hints that it's going to be the school," Bobby said.

"Well, yeah, but I thought that they weren't believing him."

Bobby goggled at me. "You _knew_ about it?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Cyclops told me this morning. So what? Nothing's _changed_ has it? Why would he be talking now?"

Bobby just shrugged, and looked around. "Well, that's all I know."

I narrowed my eyes. "It's _got_ to be a decoy."

"Heh. You're not alone. Don't worry, the staff's agreeing with you right now, but they're just not taking any chances with everyone's safety. Someone's still trying to find out the real location."

By then we were in the common room waiting for some other people to show up. I started pacing. Something had to add up. There had to be a way to figure out what was going on.

Bobby, who had been sitting in one of the armchairs, stood up all of a sudden and said, "Where _is_ everyone?"

Neither of us knew, so we both headed off towards the headmaster's office. As we were approaching we could hear a lot of arguing in there.

The door was ajar, so Bobby just stepped in. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Things have changed," Storm said curtly. She was surrounded by Wolverine, Cyclops, Kitty, Peter, and Warren.

Bobby tried talking to Storm to figure out what was happening, and I just stood next to the doorway, trying to look inconspicuous.

Then, Hank McCoy walked in, dressed in a suit as usual. "Oh, there you are," Storm said in a relieved tone. "Do you have the recording?" she asked, getting straight to the point.

"What recording?" I asked.

Storm looked at me like I shouldn't be there, but answered. "We've been trying to get word from the terrorists that Payton works with, the Friends of Humanity. But they contacted us first."

Hank was looking even more stoic than usual, and pretty tight-lipped. "The government department I work closely with was contacted this morning. The Department of Mutant Affairs informed me immediately and I'm allowing a sharing of this information with the staff." He turned on an audio recording of a telephone call from that morning.

It was a slightly distorted male voice. "Listen carefully. We are committed to passing the Mutant Registration Act into law. If you continue to work against it or get in our way, we will be forced to take further action. We are in possession of the New Legacy Virus. It will be unleashed into the general population if you do not step down from this fight. You will also receive further instructions for the release of Jason Payton."

I don't know if it was the distortion of the voice, but it really creeped me out. "Great," I mumbled. I started to do what I usually do when I get a little nervous. Play with my lighter and try to look casual.

"The President has already been informed," Hank said simply.

"And?" Wolverine growled.

"He wishes to uphold the United States policy of non-negotiation with terrorists," Hank replied.

"That means more work for us," Wolverine said resignedly, leaning back.

"New Legacy – what does that mean?" Bobby asked. "I thought the Legacy Virus was contained."

"We thought so too," said Hank, referring to the lethal virus that wiped out a good chunk of the mutant population a few years back. "It only goes to show that nothing is for certain in this world."

"How do we even know this is for real?" scoffed Bobby. "Can't they be bluffing? I mean, they haven't even done anything to show that they _have_ such a virus. They haven't even told us what it does. It's got to be different somehow – otherwise they wouldn't call it _new_."

"Don't you think we know that?" Wolverine said sarcastically.  
That phone call really must've been the only information they had, because nobody gave any real answers. Most of the kids just murmured in agreement with Bobby, that it must have been a bluff. I started twirling a band of fire around my fingers.

"You guys really think they'd go through all this trouble only to have us call their bluff?" I said, hoping I looked nonchalant playing with my fire. I racked my brain. "There's gotta be a reason for what they're doing. For one thing, why do they want us to release Payton later?"

Wolverine actually shrugged. He normally hated admitting he didn't know the answer to something, so I was surprised. But he said rather characteristically, "Beats me, but I don't care. These jerks need to pay. We'll use him to find the rest of his jerks and teach them a thing or two."

Avalanche. The thought suddenly hit me. This current situation was starting to feel really familiar to me. Very briefly I got to know this guy who called himself Avalanche when I worked with Magneto. He was a pretty big guy, and could create huge waves of vibration with just his hands. I guess he didn't always get along too well with people, but he was always nice to me. There was one occasion where Magneto had sent the two of us into a government compound because he wanted something destroyed. Guess he was too occupied with something to do it himself. Either that, or he was too important.

At any rate, we got caught by some guards, which wouldn't have been a big deal for a couple of mutants like us, but we had to keep quiet, so we let ourselves get caught. Then when it came down to the big rescue Magneto demanded that I was returned. Just me. He wanted Avalanche to stay behind and finish the job, while the guards who had caught us thought Magneto was just cutting a deal. I did feel kind of special after Magneto said he only wanted me back, but, I guess we can forget about that now.

The point of the story is, Avalanche was able to stay and destroy the place. The Friends of Humanity were letting us keep Payton for a reason. Now we just had to figure out what that was. I was trying to block out the chattering from everyone else as I thought, and then suddenly couldn't really do it anymore. It was just too distracting.

"Did he have _anything_ else on him?" Storm was asking Cyclops.

"No, just that Glock…" Cyclops replied, sounding a little distracted.

"I saw that thing. That was no Glock," Wolverine answered. Then he added derisively, "Boy Scout."

"Sure looked like it to me," Cyclops glared.

"Was it even a gun?" Wolverine retorted.

"Of course it was! What else could it be?" Cyclops was shouting, and then I had to interrupt.

"Maybe you guys should check that thing out, then," I interjected. "Could be a clue."

Wolverine and Cyclops both glared at me, and then without another word rushed off to find the safe that Payton's things were being held in.

"That's probably it," Bobby said softly, staring off into the direction they'd run off in.

"Whatever, dumbass," I grumbled, sinking into a nearby chair.

Bobby looked at me reproachfully, maybe even a little bit hurt, and said, "I thought _you_ were the one who said we had to be civil, Pyromaniac."


	16. Chapter 16

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author: Iris,** **sleepall-day** at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 16: "You have an eye for these things."**

"I told you it wasn't a gun," Wolverine was saying. He and Cyclops had scuffled the entire way up the stairs to raid the safe that the staff kept Payton's confiscated things in, and I could hear them coming back downstairs. Still arguing, of course.

"You never said that. You just said it wasn't a Glock," Cyclops grumbled, but he looked a little defeated.

Storm, Hank, and a bunch of the other students and I were still in the office when they returned, since it had only taken them a couple of minutes. Wolverine and Cyclops managed to get to the door at nearly the same time, but Wolverine shoved him out of the way just fast enough to squeeze inside first. Cyclops shot him an indignant look through his sunglasses.

"Like I said. _Not_ a gun," Wolverine insisted, triumphantly handing it to Hank McCoy, who plucked his glasses out of his suit pocket.

It was still a gun-like object, though. Wolverine gave it to Hank already opened, so that we could all see the tiny needles lined up inside of it.

"Oh, my stars," Hank muttered. He had to work a little bit in order to pick one of them up with his paw-like hands, but when he did, he held it up to his face and peered at it. Of course, by this time, everyone was crowded around him.

Hank put down the small vial quickly and announced to the room, probably in an attempt to get some people to stop crowding in on him, "It's a powder. If this is indeed the virus, then the crystalline form is allowing the Friends of Humanity a great advantage in concealing it. It looks like it could be any number of drugs found on the street."

There was a very short, hushed silence before the room broke out into a chorus of "Wait, wait!" and "Let me see!"

Wolverine was muttering to himself quietly, "Don't anyone tell Morph," since that gun _had_ been confiscated from someone who had been at the book talk. Wolverine had gone kind of pale, which I only noticed because I was standing right next to him. Everyone else was trying to get a look at the vials inside the gun.

"I'm afraid we will have to hang on to this until we have more information," Hank answered, backing away a little bit. "For now please leave us to sort together as many of the facts as possible," which I thought was just a nice way of saying, "Get the hell out, you guys!" It's what I would have said. But then again, he's the diplomat, not me.

No one listened, of course. I mean, I was still sitting there, too. I walked around the room so I could get away from Bobby, who was switching off between trying to get a glimpse at the vials and giving me dirty looks. So I found Kitty, who was listening again with Storm to the phone call. I gave her a tap on the shoulder. "We are in possession of the New Legacy Virus. It will be unleashed into the general population if you do not step down from this fight," said the distorted voice again.

Kitty and Storm were already in a conversation with each other, but I wanted to talk to Kitty, so I wiggled myself into it. Kitty was saying, "…and, if they _do_ go through with it and release the virus into the population, they don't have much to lose because it'd reveal who the mutants are, which is good for them…"

"I don't think they want it to come to that quite yet, Kitty. It's leverage, is what it is," Storm replied. "Which they'll need plenty of, when they're dealing with us," she finished firmly.

Pretty soon all of the adults in the room were trying to shoo the rest of us out, and we had no choice but to leave. Of course, everyone was chattering amongst themselves about the virus, and it was definitely the topic of discussion during lunch that day. I had no peace and quiet to myself during lunch – I was proud and a little smug; it was a new dish I was trying from Jean's cookbook – but for once, I didn't mind so much. If I started feeling awkward I would just talk to Kitty.

I like to call our staff "short-handed," these days, since it's such an understatement that it makes Storm glare at me reproachfully. It's probably one of the reasons though that she doesn't seem to mind me poking my nose into their business every now and then. Like when I heard from Kitty just a day later that there was to be a teleconference right there in the mansion. I practically rubbed my hands together with glee – the X-Men usually leave when dealing with the government, and now I'd get a chance to try to listen in on what was going on. To think, just a couple days ago I was starting to feel like nothing ever happens around here.

The day of the supposed attack by the Friends of Humanity was when the staff was holding their teleconference. Everyone was looking a little jittery, but it was classes as usual. People were wondering why we weren't evacuated or that any action had been taken, but several of us were planning on trying to find out from the meeting. As it turned out, I definitely was not allowed inside the conference room, which was one of the few rooms of the mansion that contained a huge viewscreen. But Kitty and I, along with a few other curious students like Warren, Bobby and Rogue, hung around outside until it was over.

"What's going on?" I whispered, frustrated. "Kitty, try to hear what they're saying."

She gave me an annoyed look, and whispered, "How?" even though I bet she could've come up with plenty of ways. She just didn't want to get in trouble – I had to laugh to myself at that. There were lots of things about her that hadn't changed since I was a student at Xavier's.

I kneeled on the floor, taking her with me, grabbed her shoulders and turned her head towards the wall. "Try not to look suspicious," I snickered. Kitty didn't even protest, and phased the side of her head through the wall, near the floor. Kitty jerked back unexpectedly though, and stood back up.

"Who put a bookcase there!" she said angrily, as though it were completely irresponsible to put a bookcase next to the wall. She kneeled back down though, and it was quite a sight to see. Her head was all the way through the wall, probably just barely poking through the stacks of books, and I wanted so much to laugh at her but I had to keep quiet.

After about five minutes had passed, Kitty scooted out backwards, prompting me to laugh and say, "Crab."

But Kitty didn't even chide me for it, and instead grabbed me while pulling herself up, and said in a hushed whisper to everyone, "Hey guys, let's get out of here, they're coming out!"

It was a close call. Right as we all got up to leave I could hear chairs scraping across the floor, and I was one of the last ones to get away so I could even hear Hank's voice, saying, "I hope I'm not late for my appointment." I'm sure someone must've caught a glimpse of Warren's wings or something.

We all scurried down the stairs as quietly as a pack of students could, with Kitty at the head of the bunch, so we ended up following her all the way to her room as she said, "Come with me, you guys!"

"You're not going to believe this," she said, as soon as she caught her breath and the door of her room was closed. It was me, Warren, Bobby, Rogue, and Shirtless Wonder. I mean, Peter. Believe me, I almost gave us all away trying not to laugh at the big guy scuttling down the stairs.

"This doctor from the New York Health Unit was in the conference with them. They just finished testing the stuff from the gun that our staff sent to their lab. It's definitely the virus, they said, and it's a strain of the Legacy Virus." Everyone groaned or made appropriate noises of apprehension.

"What else did that doctor say, though?" Bobby demanded.

Kitty shook her head, and looked like she was in disbelief. "I remember it word for word. He said… It's been weaponized. It's a strain of the Legacy Virus that has been altered so that it's weaponized, and no longer kills just mutants."

Kitty didn't have to say any more for us to be able to guess the virus's new target. We all knew.

"They've changed the structure of the virus so that it kills mutants _and_ humans. Basically everybody," Kitty said in a flat voice.

"What does this mean, though, weaponized?" Peter asked. "The Legacy Virus has already been engineered to _kill_. What other changes?"

Good question, I thought to myself. Kitty had an answer for that, too, though. "It means that this New Legacy Virus kills its victims within about half a day. As opposed to _days_," she said, emphasizing the _s_. "Or weeks."

Bobby let out a slow whistle, and for the benefit of anyone who didn't already know (who was he kidding?) he said, "The other virus was a really slow-acting one."

I couldn't help it. I knew I was the one who said we had to quit picking fights with each other, but, "Thanks, Drake. We're lucky to have you – just in case one of us was living under a rock while the endless news reports were pouring in at the time."

He gave me a really dirty look, so I added with a smirk, "_Just_ in case."

I really do not believe that there's a good comeback for what I'd just said to him, so he just continued to look annoyed and shook his head.

"What about the attack?" Warren reminded us.

Kitty looked a little more hopeful, and said, "Oh, yeah. It wasn't just the Health Unit that they were conferencing with. There was some intelligence work being done at the Department of Mutant Affairs for the past couple of days, and there was a representative from there."

All of us looked at her, interested. "Well, so, the woman said that there was some strong suggestion that today is the day, but no chatter that the school was the intended target."

"Chatta?" Rogue asked.

Bobby, who was already holding her around the waist, clutched her a little more tightly and explained, "It's what they call any kind of information they overhear, or whatever, when they're monitoring known terrorists."

Rogue nodded, until Warren added, "Because, a lot of information is found out through tapped conversations – like _chatting_ – therefore, _chatter_."

By then, Rogue and Kitty were both giving the two boys funny looks. I was standing off to the side as usual, arms crossed, and casually put in by way of explanation, "They watch a lot of TV."

Kitty gave a knowing look like she was agreeing, and then continued, "So, anyway, the rep said that they picked up plenty of chatter about some other place – HIIB? Something like that?" She looked a little confused at the last statement. I didn't know what it meant either.

Some of the other students looked a little confused too, but Rogue had the answer to that one. "HIIB stands for Humanistic Inquiries Instructional Building. Kahnda like a community centah for group meetin's and things like that, and it's pretty known for housin' a lot of mutant-friendly activity. So I would say it's not an unusual tahget." The rest of us nodded. "That's where they were havin' a couple of info sessions for the mutant cure," she quietly added.

Kitty quickly added, "Yeah, so, that's why we're still here. They couldn't see a reason to evacuate. They just mentioned this point a little quickly, because I guess our staff already knew about this. They had to have, otherwise we would've probably all been moved off the campus."

All of us were startled suddenly then, when we could hear some faint shouting from down the hall. Some of the kids got up and peered out of the door. It was Wolverine. He was trying to scare Payton again, hoping to get more details about the attack. The students I was hanging out with in Kitty's room just exchanged some glances, not wanting to get in the way of Wolverine when he was pissed.

Peter said, "They look like they're done… maybe this means they have their information?"

When it was decided that the students were definitely _not_ going to be in the know about things, we dispersed. Whatever the staff found out from Payton, they weren't talking. That is, until the actual attack happened. No one was ready for it. Every student who had been there when Kitty eavesdropped was completely bewildered – we thought we'd been _prepared_ for it. Didn't the staff know that this was going to happen?

Only an hour or so after the meeting in Kitty's room, everyone at Xavier's mansion was running around in pandemonium. It was absolute chaos. If I ever write a book about my house arrest at Xavier's School, I'm calling this chapter _Racket, Ruckus, and Uproar_.

Not only was everyone shouting, every TV in the mansion was tuned in to the news, which kept on showing footage from HIIB, which was a smoking wreck. It had been bombed, and it was definitely still a big deal even though no one had been killed. There were a few injuries, though.

Kitty was trailing after Storm repeating things like, "Why didn't anybody _do_ anything about this? Shouldn't someone have known about it? Why didn't anybody do something!" over and over again.

A few people were trying to make phone calls to see if anyone they knew had been hurt. And of course, some members of the staff were arguing with each other. And by "some members of the staff" I generally mean Cyclops and Wolverine.

"_So_!" Wolverine was shouting. "Nobody ever said intel was one hundred percent!"

"Well, I didn't see _you_ doing anything about it! In fact, you were agreeing with the rest of us that the most discreet way to do this was to have security arrive later!" Cyclops retorted. If that were the case, I couldn't help but side with him.

Amazingly, amidst the panic, some people were trying to calm some others down, so I decided to step in. "Well… Logan," I tried to jump in. "If that's true you really have to just let it go."

Wrong move. "Is that right?" he growled in a low voice. I gulped. I thought he was going to pummel me, but all he said was, "You're not the one in charge of administrative decisions, bub."

"Okay, okay," Storm shouted. "Let's just all sit down and talk this over, everyone." No one paid attention. Kids were still chattering and running around. Storm was getting frustrated, especially since she was trying to calm down her colleagues too.

"Everyone!" she finally boomed, and with her arms outstretched, a way too cold breeze swirled around the living room. That finally slowed things down. People stopped in their tracks to stare at her, and Storm heaved a big sigh. She said, "Let's all sit down, now." We obeyed.

When everyone had settled, Storm exchanged a look with Wolverine and Cyclops, who seemed to give her the okay to take the lead and talk to us. "Now," she started slowly. The TV behind her was still blaring. "There's a lot of blame being tossed around right now." She looked around to make sure we were still listening. "All right. Now, a lot of you are wondering why we, or anyone else, didn't send any help or security to HIIB. Since the attack has already happened, we're more willing to share this information with you. Yes, we did know that there was going to be an attack, but multiple sources, including Payton, whom you know we've been holding at the school, indicated a three-thirty PM target time. Intelligence from the government also verified this. Payton already told us the attack would be today at three-thirty, several days ago, and today we just confirmed it from him again." That must've been what the shouting had been about earlier.

A bunch of kids looked at various timepieces. I shot a glance at the grandfather clock. It was now two-thirty. The attack on HIIB had been at two PM. So, apparently, Kitty had missed out eavesdropping on one of the most important parts of the conference.

Cyclops, who was looking a lot calmer than Wolverine, spoke next. "We _did_ plan on sending help. But it was scheduled to go out a little later, closer to the target time, so that we wouldn't arouse any suspicion." Most of the kids seemed to accept this. "There's nothing more we can really do about this now, but it's fortunate that no one was hurt."

The students that had gathered in the living room started to talk all at once. I spoke up, meeting Cyclops's glance – I hoped, since you can't really tell with those sunglasses – and said, "So what about the three-thirty PM attack?"

"What do you mean? It was misinformation," he answered.

Suddenly people were paying attention to our conversation. "You sure about that?" I asked. "Sure it was misinformation?"

"Of course," he assured us calmly. "The terrorists did a good job of covering up their real target time so no one could be there to prevent it."

I then met Warren's eye. I knew he was thinking about the same thing that I was – the overheard chatter. I let him talk. He said, "Was there any intel about a two o'clock attack?" I smiled a little bit to myself. He had straightened up and looked like he was trying to be professional-sounding.

Cyclops, Storm, and Wolverine all looked at each other. Wolverine finally admitted, "No. Nothing."

I could tell Cyclops had been feeling left behind as a leader. He stood up and again tried to sound reassuring. "We all need to try to calm down. It's over, and we'll be working with the local authorities to catch these terrorists. In the meantime, you students shouldn't have to worry about a thing."

Some people followed him and stood up to leave, but not everyone seemed completely convinced that everything was going to be all right. I certainly wasn't. Warren looked at me again. He waited until a lot of people were gone, and then came over to me. "What do you think's going on?"

I shrugged at him. "What are you asking me for like I know?" I replied, sounding a little jerky.

Warren didn't really notice, though. "You just seem to. You have an eye for these things. Can't you figure this one out?" he asked, ruffling his wings nervously.

"Are you kidding?" I barked. "Come on, man, the DMA must've made a mistake, is all," I said, even though I wasn't sure of that.

Unfortunately, Warren could tell. He just put his hands on my shoulders and said, "Come onnn."

"All _right_, I think something's going on," I said in mock annoyance, throwing his hands off. "But so what? Nothing we can do."

We wasted a little time milling around and talking until Warren finally said, "I'm gonna ask Jason Payton," gritting his teeth in determination.

I was about to say something like, "Oh no you don't, you'll just get in trouble," but stopped myself when I realized that _I_, the one under house arrest, would get in trouble. Warren would probably get a talking-to. I snickered and instead said, "Go ahead. I'll be right behind you but I'm not talking." He understood, and the two of us raced up the stairs.

"What's the three-thirty attack?" Warren said immediately when we entered the room. We could actually walk into the room, because Payton was held in a separated area inside and in the chaos someone had forgotten to lock the outer door.

Amazingly, Payton responded. After staring at Warren's wings, of course. "Attack? Already happened, didn't it?" he said, with a satisfied smirk. I realized it was probably easy for him to hear that it had happened, since practically everyone in the entire mansion was shouting about it.

"You know that's not what I mean. What are you guys _really_ planning to attack?"

"Today?" Payton asked innocently. "Told you. Already happened."

"You said three-thirty, didn't you? Not two o'clock," Warren pressed.

"Must've made a mistake in the appointments. Nothing more." He was still smirking.

Why did that sound so familiar? Oh, God. Someone said something about appointments earlier. What was today? The fifteenth? I had been clicking my lighter, but stopped just then. "Hey Warren…" I interrupted.

"What?"

"Is today the fifteenth?"

"Sixteenth," he said.

I must've looked like an idiot, because I was just staring at him with my mouth open a little bit. "I got it. I got it. Come on," I said, yanking on his sleeve and pulling him back out of the room.

"What? What!" Warren kept demanding.

I waited until we found an empty spot in the hallway. I don't know why. Maybe I didn't want to cause another uproar. "I think we all should've been asking _who_ they were going to attack. Not _what_."

A look of realization came across Warren's face. "I signed up for that thing!" he gasped. "That _is_ today! Hank McCoy's speaking at a public forum today!"

I nodded so fast I probably looked like a squirrel, and said, "Yeah, I know, I know, it was in the newsletter from Storm weeks ago. But I remember the date because she sent it out so early so she kept on sending out reminders."

"Oh my God!" he shouted, and took off like a shot down the hallway.

"Wait!" I yelled, and chased after him. I looked a clock as I jumped down the stairs. It was three-forty. "Damn it," I muttered.

"Storm? Storm?" Warren was saying in a panic, as he approached her in her office. He was totally a mess. He couldn't come up with anything to say, so he just repeated parts of our conversation. "I signed up for – Hank, Hank's speech thing! Who, not what. They're still attacking!"

Storm was giving him the weirdest look ever, but she also looked concerned. I tried to help him out, so I said, "I think it's true. I think they're after Hank."

Kitty never got in trouble for being in Storm's office, and she was there now. She practically screamed, "Hank! Oh my God, no! Can someone get there in time!"

Wolverine scoffed. He didn't seem worried in the least, and said, "Is everyone forgetting that Hank is a mutant just like the rest of us? The boy can take care of himself."

"Uh, I hate to doubt Papa Smurf here, but shouldn't we do _something_?" I suggested.

Storm was still looking troubled, and so was Cyclops, but Cyclops was still trying to look put together, so he said, "Of course we should. And Logan's right. Hank's fine. No one will put a hand on him. He _can_ take care of himself. But just in case, we'll send someone over right away."

Storm said quietly, "I hope we're just getting worked up over nothing. We'll make sure there's extra security." Then, a little louder, "I think it's best if you left us to our work," indicating us students. We had no choice but to leave.

We may as well have not even left the hallway, though, because only a couple of minutes has passed when Bobby came running up to Kitty, Warren, and me in the living room and said quickly, "Guys, you should come over here." He led us _back_ to the main office but everyone was too curious to complain.

Storm was holding the phone and the dial tone could be heard. And the flushed color that she always got when she was excited about something was gone from her face. The office, where a small crowd had gathered, was suddenly quiet.

Everyone was just looking at each other without saying a word until Storm finally broke the silence by saying, "Hank McCoy's just been shot in the neck."

Wolverine immediately exploded at her. "What did you have to go and say _that_ for!" Kitty was looking absolutely stricken, and grabbed my hand in fright. I probably had some form of "I told you so" plastered on my face. Wolverine continued with slight sarcasm, "Yes, he's been shot, but it was with a tranquilizer."

Instantly there was a collective sigh of relief and everyone broke out into a hubbub. I could hear phrases like, "But Hank can dodge _anything_!" (Bobby) and "It's true, he can!" (Jubilee) and "I thought you said he could take care of himself!" (Warren) and "Oh my God, thank God he wasn't shot for real!" (Kitty) being thrown around.

I approached Storm. All I could say was, "How the hell…?"

With a grim smile, Wolverine answered, "In the only possible way anybody could shoot him. He was sniped."


	17. Chapter 17

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author: Iris,** **sleepall-day** at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 17: "What do I look like to you, The Low Self-Esteem Terrorist!"**

I don't know why, but only a little while after we got the news about Hank, suddenly all eyes were on me. It was a miserable evening the rest of the day, and not just for me. Everyone else was moping about Hank being sniped and kidnapped, and while they weren't busy moping, they were pointing the finger at _me_! My appointment with my counselor had been canceled. Storm even suspended me from the community service that I was supposed to be doing, which I ordinarily would've been thrilled about. But I felt it was so uncalled for that I protested.

"Are you out of your _mind_?" I demanded. "Are you!"

Frustrated, I paced around the mansion, looking for Kitty. She would help me. When I found her, I was shocked to see that even she was giving me a bit of a cold shoulder. "What the hell is going on, Kitty?" I asked her. "Does someone know something that I don't? Because I honestly can't think of a damn thing that would make anyone think I was responsible for any of this."

Kitty looked like she was reluctant to talk to me, but she finally offered bitterly, "Plenty of motive, at least. Everyone knows you hated Hank McCoy for putting you here. You don't even realize how much he did _for_ you by having you put here instead of jail."

"_Hated_?" I burst. Okay, maybe I did think I hated him at first, but I was mad at everybody then. "I never said that." Not out loud.

"Well, you certainly didn't like him." And with that, she turned away from me, but not before muttering, "So ungrateful," to herself. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen her so harsh before.

I thought that of all the people that were there, it would be Kitty who would stick up for me. But it was Warren. He told me that he thought it was genuine when I realized the terrorists' real plan, even though everyone else was convinced it was an act, and that I'd purposely done it just late enough so that my warning wouldn't be in time. In response to this, Warren said to me, "Look, I don't really know what to think, but I wish I could believe you. You've been a friend, all right?"

What? No, I hadn't!

Okay, so that did it. _Everyone_ in this school was out of their fucking minds.

I couldn't understand how only having a dumb motive – not particularly being fond of the blue furball – was enough to finger me as a possible suspect. But later that night I got my answer.

Cyclops had me come into the main office, where they sat me down and handed me a printout of something. It was an email. "This came from your computer," he said, which just made me even more frustrated about how closely monitored all my communication was.

I stared at it. The email was sent to an organizational member of the Friends of Humanity, and was giving information about where Hank was going to be before his forum at the meeting hall. My guess was that everyone but me had been informed of this in the past hour, just so that they could give me the silent treatment.

"I did not send this," I said stubbornly. "And so what? Couldn't anyone have sent this?"

"_No_," Storm said angrily. "The fact that Hank was visiting a board member of the DMA was off the record. In other words, it was not publicly announced. It's not like it was secret, but it was casual enough that not many people could have known about it, and –"

I cut her off. "And I agree. And I am telling you: I had nothing to do with it."

"The fact that this comes from the computer in your room is an indicator," she said stiffly.

Cyclops said gently, pointing at the paper, "If you could just explain what you were doing at the time this email was sent…"

Storm growled, "Or you could start by explaining how you got this information in the first place."

I was so mad I couldn't even think of what to say. I just sat there, gaping at her, and looked helplessly at Cyclops.

Cyclops said, "Do you remember what you were doing?"

I stared at the time and took a few shallow breaths. I couldn't remember. My mind was in such a blur from all the accusations being thrown at me, so all I said was, "I didn't do that."

Wolverine snarled and said, "He's the only one who doesn't like Hank!" I wanted to roll my eyes at him. He'd taken awhile to get used to the blue guy himself, and now that Hank was gone, suddenly everyone but me was Hank's best friend!

Storm scoffed, and looked exasperated. She looked away, and with her arms crossed, spoke out loud to no one in particular, "I can't believe he can just sit there and deny it like this."

"All right, Ororo," Cyclops said. "I won't have anyone accused without proof." When she glared at him, he added, "And we'll need something a little more substantial than this if he's saying he didn't do it." He gave her a look. At least somebody around here knew I wasn't a liar.

"I can't see why you guys are wasting your time trying to get me to admit to doing something I _obviously_ did not do. Shouldn't you be _looking_ for him?" No sooner did the words leave my mouth than their motive dawn on me. "Ohhhh," I said. "I get it. You think I can tell you where they've taken him! Well, I'm not telling you a damn thing because _I don't know_!" I bristled.

Nobody seemed to believe me. I continued to deny it, but nothing happened. Well, that's not completely true, because the vein in my forehead started pulsating.

A knock came at the door at a most opportune time. "Who is it?" Storm snapped.

"It is… Peter," he said, rather sheepishly. Storm and Cyclops exchanged a glance.

"Come on in," Storm said.

Peter Rasputin poked his head through the door and awkwardly made his way in. "I just thought I should share some additional information. I didn't think it was important at the time. Otherwise I would have said something, I am sorry."

"It's all right, we understand," Storm said. I scoffed. Sure, when someone _else_ slips up…

Peter hesitated for a second, and then said, "The date that this email was sent out? It may match what I saw. Last week I was outside, and…" He paused to look at the date and nodded.

No one was talking, so I offered, "Waxing the Tinmobile?"

Instead of ignoring my dumb comment, Peter said, "Not exactly. But, I was outside, on this day, and I saw someone climbing into John's window. I know it was his, I have seen it before." I could vouch for that. I remembered a couple of times when I'd been annoyed by the Shirtless Wonder's enthusiastic waving from outside the window while I was at the desk trying to write.

"Why didn't you think it was important?" Wolverine asked, puzzled.

"Because it looked like John. I thought it was him."

"Why would I climb through my own window?" I asked disbelievingly.

Peter looked thoughtful, and ran a hand through his buzz cut and then suggested, "Forgot your key?"

I smiled at him, because he was trying to help, and said, "No, I can tell everyone here right now that I have never climbed through my own window."

"It must have been someone who looked like John," Peter concluded. Duh! I was about to make a rude comment about tinheadedness, but thought it would be better to save it for another time since Peter was practically saving my ass here.

Storm probably still just wanted to kill me so she could blame Hank's kidnapping on _someone_, so she said, "Are you sure it wasn't when Scott was climbing through the window?" causing Cyclops to let out an embarrassed laugh.

"Oh, no, no," Peter said calmly. "I was in the doorway screaming with everyone else." I snickered.

"And besides, that was weeks ago. I am going to start locking that damn window," I announced to the room.

Storm sank into an armchair, defeated. There was no way she was going to continue to accuse me now. She just held her head in her hands and mumbled, "Maybe we _all_ should lock our windows."

That only prompted Wolverine – who doesn't even need any added protection – to smugly say, "_I_ do."

I looked at the email again and laughed. I knew I'd get in trouble for it later, but I couldn't help it. I just laughed. "I can't believe this shit," I muttered. "You have got to be kidding me."

Cyclops looked at me, sighed, and said, "Look, John… why don't you just go get some rest for now, huh? We'll see if we can't find out more information about whoever it was that Peter saw, and we'll keep you updated."

Storm and Wolverine were looking really reluctant to let me go, but I heaved a sigh that probably reminded them that I wasn't going anywhere anyway. I got up as Cyclops was saying to the others, "It's really all circumstantial at this point…"

So, I left the office with the reminder that I would be monitored even more closely now until the sender of the email was found. Cyclops told me that he would do what he could, but I was barely listening. I stormed out of the office in a silent anger. If absolutely everyone had been treating me like a criminal, maybe I could understand. But the fact that Warren hadn't been trying to alienate me just made it worse. He wasn't the one who snuck me out to New York City at night, or stayed up late to play cards with me, or taste-tested my loose interpretations of Jean's recipes. It had been Kitty. She was the one who visited my room just to talk, and stuck up for me when other kids at the school were giving me a hard time about being back. And that was all it took to turn her against me? One little email, that nobody even proved had been from me?

Well, at least now I knew what was going on. I was going to try to find her again so I could explain things. She was in a class that was going to get out soon, so I waited in the smaller, suite common room that was next to the hallway of her classroom. Nervously, I kept fiddling with my lighter. I know it looked awful. I tried telling myself to be patient but the lighter in my hand kept shaking.

The class finally let out, and a stream of students piled into the hallways. I saw Kitty in the crowd, and I know she saw me too. She knew why I was there, and before I could reach her, she turned and walked away with everyone around her. I just stood there.

Fine. If that's the way she wanted it, I didn't need her. Fuck her, and everyone else at the school, too.

At least some people had some brains around here. I had a restless night, not getting much sleep after trying to get some things written into my journal, but some things were, fortunately, cleared up the next morning. The local authorities were no help in finding where Hank McCoy had been taken, but it looked like I might luck out anyway.

I was called back into the office. I bit back the remarks I wanted to let out about the idiotic conclusion-jumping that the staff had done, but admittedly, I was grateful to Cyclops. All he had to do was a little sleuthing. All right, so, I couldn't hold back _everything_. I did say, "And you couldn't do this _before_?" which went ignored.

Cyclops had gotten some people together to question anyone who might have been outside that same day as Peter. Some of the students who had solid alibis for the time the email was sent had been recruited to help question people. Kitty was one of them. When they talked to all of the kids that usually play basketball out there, someone finally found this one kid called Sean, a total klutz. I swear that his mutation is the ability to break things, but he always insists that his one and only mutation is invisibility. I'm positive he controls some invisible force that breaks things.

Anyway, Sean was trying to retrieve a ball that he missed catching (of course) and managed to see the guy that had crawled into my room. I think I might have been on the roof at the time. The guy must've known he was taking a major risk trying to sneak in then, even though it was early morning. So as soon as Bobby found out that Sean had seen the guy, Cyclops called the police station and completely freaked out Sean until he explained that he was asking a sketch artist to come in to listen to his description. Totally ruined the fun I was going to have teasing the kid, too.

From there, it was all downhill. The police were also going to handle Jason Payton from then on, so they were sending some other officers along with the sketch artist. The staff asked the local authorities to look into finding the man, and also distributed it around the school. It didn't take long at all. Charlie identified him as one of the guys who had beaten him up. By this time I was just sitting back enjoying it all. There was no way they were going to blame this on me anymore.

Nobody asked me to leave the office yet, so I just stayed there because that's where all the news was coming in. So I found out that the Department of Mutant Affairs board member that Hank had been planning to meet, who had to go under some questioning earlier, was in a way connected to the guy who sent the email. But I wasn't able to get any more information until after a lot of it had been cleared up, which was later that afternoon, when Cyclops told me that they finally found the guy that had broken into my room and sent the email.

But before that happened, the police were leaving with Payton and one of them was collecting the things that had been confiscated from him when we caught him. I was hovering, as usual, trying to see if I could learn anything new. He was looking extremely disgruntled. Storm was talking to one of the officers, and I could overhear her saying, "Why would they go through all this elaborate trouble, sneaking in here to use a computer?"

She hadn't been addressing Payton, but he answered her anyway. He violently jerked his arm away from the officer that was leading him out, and since he was handcuffed, pointed both of his hands at me, even though I was all the way down the hallway. "Because of _him_!" he shouted. "That goddamn dirty _mutant_!" My mouth was hanging open.

Payton decided to clarify for the people who were still confused, which was everybody. He started talking to me directly. "That judge that sentenced you? That was a _human_, scumbag! We're going to do something about this mutant sympathizing that people are doing. We were going to send you to jail where you belong!"

It took all the rest of the officers to hold Wolverine back. I know he could've thrown them off of him if he wanted to, but maybe he actually had the sense not to beat up on somebody in front of law enforcement. Me, on the other hand… Well, they were too busy trying to restrain Wolverine that nobody noticed I had stopped clicking my lighter and was instead holding a flame from it.

The fire was growing bigger, until it just looked like I had a handful of it. As Payton and the police officers passed by me, Cyclops said warningly, "John, _don't_."

All I could do was stare at Jason Payton eye to eye as the fire continued to blaze in my hand. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder. "Don't put yourself where he wanted you to go," Cyclops said.

I let the fire go out by having it blow out of my hand and fizzle out into smoke. Then I said to Payton quietly, without losing my temper, "You have no right to judge me. Or any of the rest of us."

Payton was long gone before I could stop breathing so heavily. My ears felt like I'd accidentally set them on fire. I had been pacing around kicking things. I thought about the mutants I'd been living with these past few months. People hated us so much. People hated _me_ so much. No way those Friends of Humanity creeps went through all of that trouble to frame me just so I could go to jail. They had been angry ever since I went on trial because that's what they were hoping would happen.

Later I tried to cool off by writing, but I just got frustrated when I found that Kitty was still avoiding me and Rogue refused to speak to me. I was yelling, "Oh, like I ever did some personal harm to _you_, Rogue!" when Cyclops found me in a suite common room the next morning.

"John," he called. "Mind coming with me for a minute?"

I shrugged. "What? You guys need a scapegoat again?"

Cyclops pulled his lips into a tight frown and said, "Come on, John, you know that's not fair. I was trying to make sure everyone knew that we needed more proof."

I hoped he wasn't going to start whining again. So I just said, "All right," and followed him to the office.

Storm was waiting for me there, and said in what seemed like a hesitant tone, "John, we want to apologize for our accusations earlier. But you have to know that we had good reason to suspect you, and I hope you'll be able to understand. We made some pretty harsh claims that I hope you'll be able to forgive us for."

"We?" Cyclops muttered. I looked at him and wondered if he was rolling his eyes behind those glasses. He continued, "Don't forget, Storm, he tried to warn us."

She just wouldn't give up. Storm said, "Which was _part_ of the reason why we thought he had to be responsible – but, oh well, I do realize. And it was appreciated, John."

I was off the hook. Finally. And the X-Men were probably going to be able to locate Hank McCoy soon. I walked through the mansion and let out a long sigh of relief. Then I made my way to find Kitty again. I may have been cool with Cyclops, but I was still pissed with Kitty and even though she was giving me the slip, I didn't want to. I wanted to get it out in the open. I wanted to yell, make her say something, or have a fight, whatever. I hate being brushed off, and she was doing all too good a job of it.

I'd been pacing around the mansion, walking a little faster than usual from being so mad and using my lighter to make little fireballs trail after me. I just kept making them shoot out of my lighter. My mutant power definitely is a good one for catharsis, but this time it wasn't making me feel any better.

I finally found Kitty coming back to the common areas of the mansion from the Danger Room. "Hey," I said challengingly, the way I used to when I was still just thinking of leaving Xavier's School to join Magneto.

Kitty stopped walking, at least, and looked at me. "What, John?" she said flatly.

I scoffed. "What do you mean, _what_? Why don't you tell me? What are you holding against me _now_, since they're already after that Barry Sido guy? Or are you just too embarrassed to admit you were wrong, too, along with everybody else?" Sido was the guy who'd broken into my room of the mansion. They'd already taken him in for questioning.

I was opening and closing my lighter with both hands then, almost like I was about to challenge her to a fight. Kitty just sighed and shook her head. "Fine, so that's been cleared up," was all she offered.

She was about to leave, so I grabbed her by the shoulder and demanded, "And you're still mad at me?"

"Look, I'm not even mad at you anymore, but just leave me alone, all right?" she snapped suddenly. "I'm just…" Kitty just shook her head again.

"Just what? Why won't you talk to me? Why won't _Rogue_ talk to me! Girls are…" I trailed off as I let my hands, which I'd been waving around as I talked, fall to my sides.

Kitty just stared at me for a couple of seconds, and finally burst, "Because I'm mad at myself! I know you're still the same person that turned against us so you could join a team that we fight against, and God knows if you have or haven't changed. If that doesn't mean that -"

"What do you mean, haven't changed? You think I would've spent any time with you before? You think I would've?"

By now, some other kids were starting to pass by to get to their classes, but the two of us just kept yelling anyway. I didn't care. In fact, it felt _good_. I needed to let it out. I said, "I thought you of all people would think I _have_ changed. I guess _both_ of us were wrong, then!"

"I thought you had, John! That's the point! I thought you had, but that's exactly the problem, I'm just too trusting sometimes and maybe I shouldn't have trusted you! Sure, you didn't sell out Hank McCoy, but everybody would've thought it was you even without that email, at least until we had some more proof!"

I just gaped at her for that, and Kitty continued, "Yeah, that's right – now you know, huh? Did you really think the staff was starting to trust you? Fine, now you know. Everybody still thinks you're dangerous, and this whole blowup was enough to make me feel like I'd been stupid for thinking they were wrong. I just didn't feel like talking to you, okay?"

"That's not good enough," I seethed. "That's the dumbest thing I've heard, actually."

"Well, I'll just tell you that, for the first time, I started believing what Rogue had been telling me," Kitty said stubbornly.

I looked at her defiantly and with my arms folded, said, "And are you going to tell me what that is?"

Kitty's voice was wavering now, but she maintained her composure and said, "That when this is all over, you're just going to return back to the person you were, and leave the same way you left before."

I stopped. So Kitty was afraid of something when it came to me. I almost wanted to comfort her, and tell her that it wasn't true, but I just couldn't bring myself to. She had made me too angry. I told her, instead, "If I leave, Kitty… it'll be because you and everyone else here are holding open the door. Which looks like a strong possibility right now."

Kitty replied, in a choked-up voice, "I don't care that you are a selfish bastard most of time. Most of the time you _are_. But the other times, you're someone that I wish would stay, all right?" She paused. "Are you happy now?"

I let out a disbelieving sigh again. "Then what are you so worked up about? It's not like I'm going anywhere for awhile anyway!"

"You know that's not what I meant! Like I said, when this is all over…"

I cut her off, "So why are you so worried about it now! Why do you worry about when this is all over?"

Kitty and I finally stopped snapping back and forth when Kitty paused and said more slowly, "What just happened with Hank, it… it just made me wonder if I was being naïve for trusting you. And if I should keep trusting you."

I had my hands on my waist now, and I just stared at her for a bit. "Kitty," I said sternly. "Are you serious?" She turned away from me, frowning. "I'd climb into my own window? For a stupid email!" I exploded, pointing into empty space. "And a tranquilizer dart! Look at me, Kitty." She did.

"Really, look at me. What do I _look_ like to you, The Low Self-Esteem Terrorist!"

"Maybe," she retorted in a cold voice.

I broke my gaze from her then. There were more students passing by now, and I quickened my pace to follow them outside of the mansion. We had nothing more to argue about. She'd told me her side and I told her mine. "I'm sorry…." Kitty called out as I jogged away. And I knew she meant it. But I wasn't sure if I believed it.

I didn't, until I'd made it halfway down the stairs and heard her calling again, "I'm sorry," and I turned around to look at her. A single tear had fallen down the side of her face and she was chasing after me. I stopped running and let her come to me.

"I am. I am sorry," Kitty said and started running down the stairs faster until she'd fallen into my arms and I was kissing her, because I saw her and I couldn't help myself. And before I did, I remembered to take a good look at her so I didn't miss a thing.

People were rushing past us, but Kitty and I were frozen to the spot where we'd both stopped running, and she held me close as she kissed me back. When she did, I knew we'd both been waiting for this.

"It's not over, yet," I reminded her when we finally broke our kiss. "We've still got so much time." Why wait for something for so long just to let it go?

I was holding her shoulders as we looked at each other then, and before we went back inside together, I had to stop to pick up my lighter.


	18. Chapter 18

**Title:** You've Got To Go There To Come Back  
**Author: Iris,** **sleepall-day** at Livejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13.  
**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.  
**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.  
**Author's Note:** This is my all-time first fic, and **lovethiscity** at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

* * *

**Chapter 18: "Hey, come back soon, okay?"**

I wasn't sure if I should hold Kitty's hand or not, but I knew either way, I wanted to hold her close, so I just wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her back up the stairs to the mansion. I'd been barefoot when she drove me outside in anger, so there was the ugly sound of my metal tracker clinking on the concrete stairs.

From the hallway, someone sounded like they were throwing up in the kitchen. I stopped walking and listened. "Yup, definitely someone vomiting," I said to Kitty.

"Barfing," she added.

"Yeah, but there's also heaving, and retching. Spewing your guts."

"Don't forget puking," Kitty said with a smile. Not the conversation I would have picked for us to have after the first time we kissed, but as I was quickly learning, there just are too many things you can't pick about life.

I walked in and saw that Rogue was bent over the kitchen sink, one hand on the counter for support and the other across her stomach, and – well, insert your favorite word for what she was doing.

"I'll give that a three," I said to her. "But you'll do better next time."

I gave her a pat on the back, which immediately caused Rogue to shriek, "_Don't touch me_!" She backed sharply away from the sink and was breathing heavily. "Don't touch me," she said again, more calmly this time.

I was standing frozen, holding my palms up in the air, one clutching my lighter. "Hey, chill. I was just trying to make you feel better," I said, to calm her down.

Rogue was running the water now and finished rinsing her mouth out. She said flatly, "Oh, since when do you do that, Pyro."

Before I could respond, Rogue started to leave, and Kitty shot me a worried glance and I nodded to her, saying it was all right for her to go. "Hey, Rogue…" Kitty called after her.

I sighed. Rogue had been downright unpleasant to me lately. I ran the garbage disposal myself.

Storm, meanwhile, seemed to be having a hell of a time trying to deal with the political side of things without Hank's presence. After the two girls left, I was sitting in the common room, trying to collect some thoughts together about what had just happened moments before with Kitty. Specifically, the fact that I kissed her. And that she kissed me back. Okay. So. Hopefully she wasn't going to want to talk about it, because I wasn't sure what I would say to her yet.

I didn't actually get to think too much about it, though, because the X-Men were hurriedly trying to get the team ready to leave somewhere. I could hear them trying to make some last-minute plans and it was a few minutes before I realized – if they were off to a fight, or something, that meant Kitty was probably going, too. And I wouldn't be. I sat up.

I ran a hand through my hair nervously, and grabbed the attention of the next person who walked past, which was Warren. "Hey, man. You know where the X-Men are headed?" I asked him.

"Oh, it's not just the X-Men," he answered seriously. "I'm going too. So are some of the other students."

I waved my hands in frustration. Yeah, that's what I meant, but I guess some of the students weren't official, real, live X-Men yet, simply because they were too young. "Okay, so, where are you guys off to?"

"Conference," Warren shrugged and then started to walk off again.

"Wait, _what_? Conference? Are you serious?" I demanded. "There's more, right? Everyone's worked up."

For the first time, a look of annoyance crossed Warren's face, and he answered, "Well, of course they are. We are _missing_ somebody, and we're trying to get him back."

"So everyone's just going to sit around and _discuss_ it?" I asked, trying to squeeze some answers out of him.

"No. Not exactly. We're just going to it to get caught up on the latest news, and then we're leaving to go get him," he admitted.

I slapped him across the shoulder. "See, _that's_ what I was looking for!"

Warren shrugged again, and replied in his deadpan way, "Okay. Well, I'd love to stay and wrestle, but we have to leave really soon."

As he left, Warren passed Wolverine in the hallway, who said to him, "Hurry up and get changed, bud. We don't have a lot of time."

Storm, who was already in her X-suit, was running down the stairs and came to a halt when she saw Wolverine, and said, "Oh, Logan! Come on! You were supposed to already be in uniform! Let's go!" Then she caught sight of a uniformless Cyclops, and she glared at him open-mouthed.

"You too!"

"I _can't_! My motorcycle's been stolen!" Cyclops replied, clearly distraught. He was holding a fist to the side of his head and was pacing around.

"_Already_!" blurted out Wolverine in mock ignorance. "I just parked it two minutes ago!"

"_You_ had it! Why, you little…" Cyclops started seething, until his and Wolverine's words were both jumbled into a heated argument.

"We can't do this right now!" Storm snapped. "We have to get moving!"

Kitty, Bobby, Peter the Shirtless Wonder and Warren all arrived, suited up and ready to go. So I'd been right about Kitty. And Rogue was obviously missing, useless to their mission.

I saw the confident look on Kitty's face and felt dumb immediately for worrying about her. She could take care of herself better than most people – after all, she couldn't be hurt if no one could touch her. But I couldn't help feeling concerned anyway. I took a few tentative steps forward so I could whisper to just her, "Hey, come back soon, okay?"

She looked at me through the corner of her eye. Kitty gave me a little half-smile and said, "Of course."

"All right, everybody into the Blackbird now," Storm said. "You two just get changed and meet us there," she added, addressing Wolverine and Cyclops, who had finally stopped squaring off and were simply crossing their arms at each other.

"Bye," I called to the two of them, since they were passing by me. Both Wolverine and Cyclops acknowledged it with a nod.

As Storm stepped down the stairs, while she was still taller than me she gave me a little rub on the top of my head, and said before leaving, "Be good and watch everyone in the mansion, okay?"

Maybe she really did feel bad for her accusations earlier. I shrugged inwardly and almost forgot to resent her for acting like I didn't actually have to be there if I didn't want to.

For what seemed like the millionth time, the mansion felt totally empty, since everyone had gone and left me behind because I couldn't go anywhere. I'd also been left with the annoying, nagging feeling that they would have left me behind because they didn't trust me even if I _could_ go places. I decided to just head back to my room to do some writing.

I passed Rogue's room in the hallway on the way to mine, where a television was showing the news. The door had been left open, so I could see that Rogue wasn't watching the TV. She was lying on her bed, not even under the covers, with her forearm over her arms.

I couldn't help it. I was too curious. I poked my head in the room and knocked on the door. Rogue slowly lifted her head up and gave me a puzzled look. "What d'ya want, Pyro?" she asked weakly.

"Just… wanted to see how you're doing," I said. It wasn't a lie, exactly. In any case, I wasn't about to lie, so I added, "I was wondering what was wrong."

"_Nothin_'," Rogue replied sternly, and then sank back down onto her pillow. "Just tired. And a little sick."

I leaned against the doorframe and said, "Why don't you get some water?" since I didn't feel like being a gentleman to her by offering to get some.

Rogue looked like she was considering the idea for a moment and then said, "Nah. It's okay." She looked at me awkwardly and then slowly said, "I'm pretty sorry about havin' been so rude to you about… well…"

If Rogue wanted to interpret my curiosity as concern, that was fine with me. I shrugged and said, "What, you mean you're sorry for doing exactly what everyone else was doing to me?"

I don't mind picking fights with people, but Rogue didn't accept this one. She just replied calmly, "No, I guess I meant I was sorry for not being more understanding."

"Understanding?" I repeated. "You don't even know what I'm going through! You don't know what it's like."

"Don't know what _what's_ like? Being surrounded by a bunch of people who are scared of you and don't trust you? Yeah, Pyro, if that's what you meant, then I guess you're right, because when I put my old boyfriend Cody into a coma, nobody wanted me near them or even around them." Rogue, still lying back on the bed, had been holding herself up on her elbows and then let herself fall back flat again.

Silence. Even the TV seemed quieter after that.

I didn't want to apologize for snapping at her, and I didn't have to, because Rogue just said weakly from her supine position, "I just meant that I was sorry I haven't tried to give you another chance. I really haven't tried. But I knew I was wrong about that when I found out the truth about who set up Hank. So I'm sorry."

I shifted my eyes uncomfortably, and said, "Well, you shouldn't really be, since it's not like I've given everyone here a chance. Or even the chance to like me."

"True enough," she agreed.

There was another pocket of silence, until she offered, "We _are_ livin' together. I'll try to be nicer, even though it's not goin' to be the same as before."

I nodded, although lying down she couldn't see me. "Yeah," I said, which was the closest I could get to saying I would do the same. Then I tried to change the subject by saying, "You sure you don't want to get some fresh air or something?"

"Huh? Oh… nah. It's fine. Besides, I don't want to miss the broadcast if they have one."

"What broadcast?"

"The Friends of Humanity sent the Department of Mutant Affairs a recordin', and they might play it on the news," Rogue answered.

"That's what they're going to the conference for?" I asked. I was secretly glad I was finally having a normal conversation with one of the other kids here other than Kitty or Warren.

"Yeah… and I think maybe they told how to get Hank back in the video, too."

"I see…" I said slowly. Rogue turned her head to look at the TV, and for a minute we both just stared at it as though we could will it to show us the video. But I guess we hadn't hit prime time yet, because they were just breezing through some sports news. They also talked about reconstruction that would be going on at the Humanistic Inquiries Instructional Building.

I didn't feel too comfortable with hanging out in Rogue's room, but she didn't feel like moving to the common room. There wasn't any point in watching the same thing separately though, so I just sat down next to her and played with the flame from my lighter while we waited for the news.

When an anchorman announced that exclusive footage from the Hank McCoy kidnapping was going to be aired, and I knew that the X-Men had to be already in the know and on their way to him. Every Friends of Humanity member in the video had their face concealed, but fortunately, the anchorman announced that someone called Nicholas Swisher had already been found to be involved. It was because of the DMA board member, Stan Anarvine, Hank was supposed to have been meeting when he'd been kidnapped. I remembered someone saying that the board member was involved somehow, but he wasn't part of it. Apparently Swisher had contacted Anarvine and tried to arrange a meeting, and filled in all the holes where the Anarvine said he was booked already. Somehow this extremely unscientific method had yielded results for Swisher, and that's how he found Hank.

The video itself was worse than I expected. I know as well as the next guy how soft it makes me look – but I felt terrible looking at Hank's face. Rogue gasped as we watched it. He was tied up and gagged, which would normally never have held a mutant like him captive, but also on enough drugs to keep him from escaping. His normally intelligent, alert eyes had a drowsy look, but at the same time he looked frightened. I felt awful. I was no prisoner compared to that.

The terrorists proceeded to tell the viewers that they were going to force Hank McCoy to sign documents that admitted to the crimes that he and the mutant population as a whole had committed against humanity. Hank had not done it yet, but if he didn't sign the papers saying that he would work to legalize the Mutant Registration Act, the terrorists claimed they would unleash their new strain of the Legacy Virus on Hank himself, and leave him to spread it to everyone else.

I was suddenly concerned for my own safety, as I had nowhere to go. I looked at Rogue. She looked a lot like how I felt. She was wide-eyed and held a hand to her trembling mouth.

* * *

Some chapter notes:  
- Yep, the barfing dialogue was definitely a homage to my favorite book series ever, Animorphs, as I have been looking for a way to incorporate a dedication to that series in this fic.

- Yes, every single member of the Friends of Humanity is named after members of another group that I hate. Sorry. But I do. And if you catch it and know who I'm talking about (see previous chapter for more members), you'll either hate me, think I'm being funny, or think I'm being ridiculous.


	19. Chapter 19

You've Got to Go There to Come Back - Chapter 19

Title: You've Got To Go There To Come Back

Author: [info]sleepall_day

Rating: PG-13.

Timeline: Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.

Summary: After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.

Author's Note: This is my all-time first fic, and [info]lovethiscity was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

Chapter 19: "You gotta protect yourself."

I was in so much shock that the Friends of Humanity had managed to get this far that I sat silent for a few minutes, as did Rogue. I even forgot for a second to be pissed at her for her patronizing of me, although my feelings would probably return pretty soon.

Rogue, who was feeling good enough to sit up now, finally broke the silence by saying, "I just can't believe it. Poor Hank."

"Yeah," I mumbled.

"Y'know… Bobby said he would try to contact the mansion if they found out the location. Just to tell me if they'd be goin' in or not," she said in a shaky voice.

"You're actually worried about him?" I asked. "That they're not going to make it back, or something?"

Rogue shrugged, but I could see the tension in her face. She wasn't about to confide in me, and I didn't want her to, but I couldn't help adding with the air of confidence that had rubbed off on me from Magneto, "They're going up against a bunch of humans. Terrorists, yeah, but they're humans. Any one of us could take them."

"That's probably what they'd like us to think, isn't it?" Rogue said. "But they've outwitted us once – they got Hank, and we thought he could do anythin'. And they've got an incredible advantage right now with that virus, don't you see?"

When I didn't say anything, Rogue continued, "Sure, we as mutants have our powers, and they don't. Which is why they've come up with their own ways of fightin' against us." I nodded. "And John…"

I looked up, at the sudden use of my real given name, instead of the one that Magneto had said was my real name.

Rogue continued, "I've never felt the need to apologize for this – it used to just make me mad – but I never told you. I never meant to make you feel alone by takin' Bobby away from you. At first I was just mad that you resented me for somethin' that wasn't much my fault, but I know how much you've felt alone in your life. And I never meant to do it to you myself."

I was mystified, even more so than angry at first. "Why are you telling me all of this? And what do you mean, you know I resented you? Rogue, I never said a word to you, so don't you go messing around with me thinking you know shit about me –"

"I do know it," she cut in suddenly. "I do know."

I was just giving her a nasty look while I collected my thoughts and tried to make sense of how the hell she was saying all kinds of things about me – all kinds of things that were true. And I should've known, even before Rogue told me, "That day you attacked the policemen. At Bobby's house. You were in my head."

"I didn't know that happened," I admitted. I remembered feeling dizzy, and like I was out of breath and maybe about to faint, as my powers were being sucked out of me – and I knew that Rogue had taken my powers but I didn't know that she had taken my thoughts, as well. She had done a good job of never revealing to me that she'd been in my head. This girl, who had once been a friend but not much more than an acquaintance since I knew her through Bobby, had a peek at some of my mind's thoughts and I didn't like it. She knew that everything she had taken from me was the truth, so I couldn't even use the defense that she didn't know if what she had seen was real or not.

I shifted around nervously. I suddenly felt very exposed, so, defeated, I narrowed my eyes at her and said, "You're never allowed to tell me I'm rude again. Pretty much."

Rogue ducked her head and let out an embarrassed laugh, and said, "I'm sorry. I really am, about that. It was one of the most… uncomfortable parts about my power. I never liked takin' memories. From anybody. It just lingers. And I know I didn't do it again when you touched me back in the kitchen, but somehow at that moment, everything from you that lingered in my head just kind of came rushing back in a wave." I raised an eyebrow.

"Did that… ever happen before?" I asked.

"No. It was just then. Just this… incredible feeling of loneliness," Rogue said, and then quickly looked down.

I heaved a sigh. It was one thing to have people feel sorry for me, which was bad enough, but it was completely another to have them actually feel your own emotions. I hated it, but there was nothing I could do about it now. "Must've been the old memories," I said.

"I don't know. I wouldn't have been able to tell. But if you say so, John," Rogue conceded.

Then I asked what must have been on everybody's minds. I just said it straight out. "Are your powers coming back?"

Rogue looked down and shook her head in a confused way. "Honest? I don't know. I really don't. I didn't ever feel sick before, when I first got them. But when I talked to Kitty, she told me she used to get headaches when she was gettin' hers. So now I'm scared."

At the mention of Kitty I suddenly realized that I was actually glad I was talking to Rogue instead of her. Rogue definitely wasn't my favorite person – but I didn't know if I could face Kitty yet. I just didn't know what I would say to her. And if she asked me any direct questions, I would rather not answer them right now. So I wasn't altogether too upset to be talking to someone else right then.

I told Rogue airily, "Well, since you weren't sick the first time, maybe you just got the flu or something. Could be anything."

"It could be," she said doubtfully.

I then got angry all over again even though I'd just tried to comfort her in a small way. I sat back and hoped that she hadn't seen too many of my personal thoughts. I knew that she had seen my resentment and that was bad enough. I couldn't help being mad at her for how exposed she made me feel, including and especially because it had made her sympathetic. "Just because you've seen some of my thoughts doesn't mean you've seen the whole picture," I said. "You still can't judge me, you know. Or anyone. It's not your place," I spat out as harshly as I could.

"I know," she said softly. "Bobby doesn't know anythin' I saw, by the way. I just thought you should know that I didn't talk to anyone about it."

I just crossed my arms and said, "Whatever. Just, why don't you try to stay out of other people's business from now on?"

"I know that –"

"I mean, it's really just as well that you gave up your power, since you know, you couldn't receive massages, participate in relay races, have sex, wear revealing clothing on hot days, or be interesting," I said, ticking off each item on a finger. "So now that you don't have your power, get used to the idea that you're not supposed to be poking around in other people's messes."

Rogue had a look on her face that said she was trying very hard not to get mad. She said, "It's not the biggest deal in the world, Pyro. Like you said, I only really got a glimpse at your thoughts, not everythin'."

I continued to sit facing away from her with a bored expression on my face. "Suit yourself," Rogue finally said. "I'd just forget about it if I were you."

I was about to get up to leave, but before she could finish talking, a beeping sound like an alarm clock went off, which caused Rogue to jump. "That's him," she said, and searched around on her bed for a communicator to the Blackbird.

I continued to lazily look at the television while Rogue had a boring conversation with her boring boyfriend. After she said, "Be careful, sugah," Rogue clicked the communicator off and faced me. "They can't find him. They're not comin' back jus' yet though. But they're all worried sick about what's going to happen if they can't find Hank."

Just as Rogue finished talking, there was an enormous crash. It was an explosion. I yelped and Rogue screamed as the floor was rocked. "What the hell just happened?!" I shouted. I couldn't tell where it was, but a wall somewhere was crumbling, I could hear it.

"A bomb?" Rogue said, bewildered.

"Oh God. They – whoever they are – they know the X-Men are gone," I said, as we ran out of her room. Rogue ran straight into a guy wearing a ski mask and screamed.

"Who are you!" she demanded. The man gave her a backhanded punch across the face, which didn't stop her for a second. I'd gotten my lighter out, but I could only watch, stunned, as Rogue stumbled back and righted herself. Then, with both hands, she grabbed the man across the throat in a chokehold. He started to fight her, but then went limp. Rogue had a pained look on her face and let out a strangled gasp.

I almost didn't believe what I was seeing. It didn't really sink for me until the man collapsed to the floor and Rogue, with tears brimming in her eyes, said, "They bombed the top floor and they're goin' t' plant some more explosives."

I stared at her for a second, opened my mouth to say something and then just closed it again. Then I flicked open my lighter and drew the flame out of it. "Okay then," I replied calmly.

"Let's go stop them."

Rogue and I ran down the hallway towards the sound of the explosion, and then I said, "Hey! Did you… I mean, were you able to tell from that guy where they're keeping Hank?"

"Yes! I mean, I don't know where it is! I saw it, though, I saw it," she replied through her tears. She looked more pained than anything. "I couldn't tell anyone where it is though, I only saw a picture in my head. And I know they're headed there afterwards."

"Definitely? You're sure of it?" I asked hastily.

"I am sure of it!"

Both of us were running down the hall barefoot, which made my metallic anklet clink across the floor. It gave me an idea. "We can get him back," I assured her. "Don't worry."

I wasn't going to go down without giving some of those creeps a piece of my mind, though. We found a few more of the intruders, no doubt from the Friends of Humanity, and I didn't hesitate to deliver a serious punch to the face of one of them. I could've just burned him, but I wanted to feel my fist connecting with the guy's skull. A fist that was encased in flame. Xavier's mansion may not have been the home that I chose, but it was still the only place I had, and I wasn't happy with being disturbed by outsiders.

I didn't know it before, but Rogue definitely had benefited from her hand-to-hand combat lessons in the Danger Room, because she was holding her own pretty well. The two of us probably could have taken the mutant haters down, even after we were surrounded and outnumbered. But about four of them were suddenly restraining Rogue, and another had knocked my lighter out of my hand. That didn't matter though, since I already had full control of a sizeable fire.

"Fucked up muties!" one of them spat out, as he delivered a blow to the side of my head. It hurt like a cold, hard bitch, but I took it. I even let him hit me again, but hell, I was definitely starting to doubt if I could really do this.

"No!" Rogue cried out, even as she was fighting back. "Pyro! John! Hit him back! Hit him back!"

One of them pushed her away, and I went down as my attacker hit me another time. Then I realized – I wouldn't get away with this. If I let myself be captured, everyone would think it was in an attempt to get away from the mansion. God, I'd love to leave, but now couldn't be the time – I had to help. I was thinking about Kitty.

I almost smiled to myself as I pictured Cyclops's Boy Scout-like face, saying, "Always be prepared!" One of the intruders was about to grab me, so I threw myself down onto the ground, stretching my arm out to grab my lighter. I snatched up the Zippo, and put it safely in my pocket. I easily took out the men holding Rogue with my fire, and then I took her by the arm.

"Rogue, take this," I said to her. Before she could react, I put it her hand an extra plastic lighter and, bracing myself, took a breath and grabbed her bare wrist.

Definitely wasn't easier the second time around. I was getting dizzy, but trying to stay awake. I fell to the ground, and then said, "Doing this to help, okay? Now you know," to Rogue just before I felt like I was about to pass out, finally letting go of her.

I was on the ground wheezing. I couldn't do anything anymore to control any more fires, or to protect Rogue. I saw her getting hit again, and I said weakly, "You gotta protect yourself." It was barely more than a whisper.

Rogue managed to grab another one of the men and absorb the power out of him until he fell straight to the ground, unconscious, but she must have been in too much shock. She wasn't controlling herself or paying attention to the rest of the men. The last thing I saw before going down was one of the other men shooting her point-blank in the back. She didn't even have time to scream, and dropped to the floor.

"Oh my..." I breathed. I reached out to grab her, but the men were pulling me away already. Rogue had definitely been shot to kill. A pool of blood was beginning to form around her.

When I woke up, I wasn't in the mansion anymore, but I guess I didn't stay down for long, because I opened my eyes and I was being dragged across the back lawn. I looked behind me and saw the damaged school, smoke rising from some parts of it that had been bombed. My pant leg was covering my anklet, but I knew that right now it must be blinking like crazy. The X-Men would come find me. They'd come. They had to.


	20. Chapter 20

**Title: You've Got To Go There To Come Back**

**Author:** Iris, "sleepall_day" at Livejournal

**Rating:** Fairly tame but around PG-13.

**Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.

**Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Author's Note:** This is my honest-to-goodness, first ever, never-before-done fic. I have absolutely never written a fic before. This isn't a plea of "Please be nice to me!" It's more a warning of, "Oh my God, this is going to suck." I'm more of a graphics kind of a person. But I had this plot idea, and I just had to try it out, and I'm hoping against hope that it works. So I'd really appreciate it if you guys gave it a try and let me know how it goes. Feedback is always appreciated!

I am posting to because someone had expressed interest in seeing this story up there, but I normally post to Livejournal and would very much appreciate any comments left there, too. If reading from Livejournal is easier for you, look for the username lovethiscity. Catch up on updates to the story whichever way is easier for you.

**Chapter Note: Many, many apologies to everyone who had been following this story. I neglected to update it in a really long time, and now I'm determined to finish this. Thanks for reading while you did, and I'm grateful to anyone who wants to give this another try now that I'm back to it! **

* * *

**Chapter 20: "Telekinetics are pretty hard to fool."**

That mansion had been my home for months, and now I was watching it burn. I almost choked out a laugh from the irony of it – I hadn't done a thing to contribute to that fire. The fire I'd built during the fight had fizzled out when I made contact with Rogue.

Oh, God. Rogue. She was… the last I saw her, she was lying face down in a puddle of her own blood. I would never see her again. Just when I'd made a small bit of peace with that girl. I reached out with my mental powers to draw in the fire from the mansion, and maybe use it to take out my attackers. I held my concentration on a small part of the fire and killed the rest of it. Good. Now it would stop burning. That was the last thought I had before one of my captors noticed what I was doing and dealt another blow to the side of the head and I blacked out.

When I awoke, I was unrestrained, but lying on the floor of what looked a bit like a warehouse. I sat up slowly, but fell right back down when I realized my head was pounding. I looked around me. It was dimly lit, but I could clearly see that I was behind a wire cage, the kind that looks like a fence. It was tall enough that the top attached to the ceiling, and it had a built-in hinged door, which was secured with a padlock. I groaned and shook the door angrily. More than anything, I hated – _hated_ – it when my powers made me feel… well, powerless. There was nothing I could do to get out of here. In desperation I patted all of my pockets and even turned them inside out. Nope, nothing. I scanned the room to see if there were _any_ sources of flame, but of course there was nothing. But it did allow me to notice that I wasn't alone in the room.

The place looked like a tiny Costco, with boxes piled in stacks and three more wire cages like the one I was locked in. Two other mutants occupied them, with one left empty. One of them, a big, black-haired boy that was maybe a little younger than me, appeared unconscious. The other was a small pink-haired girl with actual fairy wings growing out of her back, and she was awake. Upon spying me, she waved at me.

"Psst. Hey, buddy!" she whispered. There was a thick accent around her words. British? Irish? Something weird.

I gave her a bit of a glare. "Am I your buddy?" I challenged.

She ignored this and said hopefully, "You're awake! I thought maybe they drugged you too, or something." She had the thickest, weirdest accent I'd ever heard, and in addition, she sounded like she was mumbling, but I got the gist of what she was saying. "They drugged up Julian here, cause he could get us out of here. I can't. You got anything?"

I scrunched up my face in disgust and had to admit I didn't. "I control fire. But I can't make it on my own. I got nothing to work with. And I'm not strong enough to break the lock or anything, either. Damn it all, if Tinhead were here he could do it," I muttered.

Now she looked confused. After a second's pause, she offered, "Hi. I'm Meg." She waved again because we couldn't shake hands for the space and pile of boxes between our cages.

I held myself still against the fence, and responded simply, "John." I suddenly remembered the anklet, and snatched up my pant leg. Yeah, it was there, and blinking away with red lights all lined up in a row on the silver ring like a tiny, obnoxious UFO.

"What's that?"

"A tracking device. Shit. They know about it. I mean, _they_ as in FOH. They know about me. Shit. _Shit!_ It's a trap of some kind."

Meg looked even more bewildered now. "They're trying to lure some people here?"

"Yeah, and I bet the cops will be the first to get here, too. They'll walk right into whatever the trap is. The cops have got this thing monitored." I stopped talking for a moment to get my thoughts together. The Friends of Humanity wouldn't want any more trouble with the law than they could handle, right? They were most likely trying to lure the rest of the X-Men into some kind of trap by using my tracker. Maybe there was some kind of ambush waiting in this warehouse that I couldn't see. I shook my head in disbelief. They sure were going to a lot of trouble to take the X-Men out of the picture.

"I think our best bet's to get Julian up. He can get us out of here," Meg piped up again. "But I don't really know what they got him hopped up on. I don't know if this is any use." She reached through the wire of the fence and into a cardboard box. She was small and thin enough that she could – I could only fit my hand through the wire. The little cardboard box had a hole in it that I assumed she'd clawed earlier.

Meg withdrew a ballpoint pen from the box and threw it squarely at the unconscious boy. It didn't make it through the mesh fence, but he was lying right up against it, so the pen bounced off his head. I noticed there was more pens scattered on the floor around and inside the cage. "Nope," said Meg. "He won't wake."

She seemed so confident that all our problems would disappear if this one kid would just get up, so I felt even weaker about my powers. Feeling weak makes me angry. But eventually curiosity won out. "What does he do?" I asked.

"Oh, he's telekinetic. He could probably do something to the locks or just bash something into the fence. Or pull the wires in the fence apart. Or something. Telekinetics are pretty hard to fool." That left me feeling like even more of a wimp, and, therefore, angry. I had nothing on me I could use.

"You got any matches on you? Or a lighter? Anything?"

"Nope. I don't smoke."

I rolled my eyes at her. "I can control fire, remember? I just need one – even a little spark – to get me started."

Meg nodded thoughtfully. She started looking around the room, too, for anything I might be able to use. I did too, and right then I noticed a small air vent on the wall, right near the ceiling. Some white mist was slowly sleeping into the room through it.

"Oh, no. Oh, God, no. We're going to die. I told you it was a trap of some kind. They must be gassing us, Meg!" I pointed to the ceiling.

The poor girl looked as frightened as I felt. Her gossamer fairy wings were quivering as she looked up at the vent. The thick white mist continued to pour into the room, but oddly enough, it kind of stayed together, instead of spreading out like you'd expect a gas to do.

I watched with fascination as dull colors began to form in the mist, becoming brighter within a few seconds. Then long red hair began to swirl out of it and the cloud solidified into my guidance counselor – one Amelia Voght, to the rescue!

"Amelia!" I yelled out, from sheer relief.

"Yeah. It's me, John. You okay? You hurt or anything?" Now fully formed, she looked just like I'd always seen her – sensible shoes, blunt red bangs across her forehead, and a little taller than me.

"Just from being knocked around a little, but I'll live. You… you're like…" I couldn't even form the words to describe what I'd just seen her do.

"Going to get you guys out of here? Sure. We have to hurry," she said in her usual no-nonsense way. "We'll leave the way I came in," she added with a smile.

Before I had any time to react, she'd swept up her hands and I was gone. I felt absolute, total panic as I realized I couldn't move my arms or legs or _anything_, because I didn't have them anymore. I wanted to scream, but I had no mouth or lungs. I couldn't even see anymore. All I felt was… nothing. I could think and feel movement and be terrified, but I couldn't do a thing.

Then, just as fast as it'd happened, I was back in my own body, gasping for air and heart pounding. I was standing on a lawn outside of the building I'd been held in. "Oh my God, Amelia. Please don't _ever_ do that again."

"Sorry, kiddo. I should've warned you. I can see where I'm going in my mist form, but I've been told that my passengers can't always tell what's going on."

"Thanks for getting us out," put in a small voice from behind me. I turned around to see that Meg and Julian had also been along for the ride. Julian was still slumped on the ground, but Meg was holding his head up on her lap, crouched down to support him.

"Did you use my anklet to track me?" I asked Amelia.

"Sure did," she answered. "Don't worry. You're not in any trouble. At least, I don't think so. We'll wait for a few minutes – police are getting here."

I shook my head. "This feels anticlimactic," I told her. "I totally feel like I lost some of my manly points not being able to get out of there. Plus, being rescued by your guidance counselor is a little lame," I teased.

Amelia looked truly offended. "I'm not just your guidance counselor, I'm a psychiatrist, John. Didn't you know that? I have an MD!"

I actually did not. I just shrugged at her, because I didn't think that required an apology, or why it mattered.

She gave me a disapproving look, but she did have a glimmer of a smile on her face. "Just because I don't make you call me _Dr._ Voght. You don't actually know a thing about me, do you?"

In all our counseling sessions, I never really did ask her about herself much. But why should I have? Wasn't it all about determining whether or not I was being a good little prisoner? I shrugged again.

"Just saying. There's more out there than you know, John," Amelia said, and then reached into her pocket. She pulled out my shark Zippo, which made me grin. She tossed it to me, but just before I caught it, it dissolved into a tiny cloud of white mist. Amelia pulled the mist back towards her, and showed me the Zippo, solidified again and back in her hand.

"Show off," I grumbled.

"I have talents," was her reply, and this time she threw the lighter to me for real.

"I am going to have to strap you to my wrist again," I said sternly to the little shark face on the lighter. It made Amelia give me a strange look.

"People keep taking this from me," I said by way of explanation. I loved that thing.

Fortunately, before she could accuse me of being crazy, we heard the sirens approaching. It wasn't quite what I expected. There were the police cars I knew I'd be seeing, but there were also paramedics, and a bomb squad. Wow. I'd suspected there was some kind of trap, but the gravity of the situation seemed to sink in just when I saw them unloading from their cars. The white letters on the backs of their dark uniforms that signaled who they were scared me a little.

I was loaded into an ambulance with one of the officers accompanying me. I guess you didn't get that kind of special treatment when you weren't under house arrest. Amelia came along for the ride, too. I told the paramedics I was fine, but of course they wanted to check me out anyway. I actually didn't mind too much. It was kind of fun riding in the ambulance. Besides, I never would've guessed before tonight that I would be outside of my confinement, and get away with it, too! I started looking forward to the hospital, just for a change of scenery.

On the ride over, Amelia filled me in on what had happened. The police had raised the alert as soon as my tracker showed that I was out of my limits, and fortunately, a few of the X-Men were returning to the mansion then. What they found showed that I hadn't exactly broken out, and they tracked me to the warehouse. Wolverine was able to smell the explosives that were planted, with the outer door as the physical trigger.

"Definitely a trap," Amelia confirmed.

"I knew it!" I exclaimed. "I totally called it, Amelia."

"Yes, you're a genius," she interjected with dripping sarcasm, before continuing with her story. "They were going to use Kitty to phase through the walls, but Storm didn't want to risk her. That's why it took a little while. They were contacting me to get you guys out, instead," Amelia explained.

"Wow," I breathed. "I really had no idea what your powers were," I finally admitted.

"It's okay. It's an eye-opener, isn't it?" she said. I nodded as they hustled me into the automatic sliding doors of the emergency room. I barely had time to think about the fact that there was so little I didn't know about the world.

The hospital was just as bustling and busy as one on TV. Before a doctor examined me, the police officer I was with used his laptop to turn off the silent alarm my anklet was setting off. He'd be hanging around me until I was within the limits of my house arrest, I guessed. Amelia took her leave then, having done her good deed for the day, and ruffled my hair before walking back out the sliding doors.

The doctor was brisk, and said I had a mild concussion but that I'd be okay. "I know," I told him. "That's what I said earlier."

"Yes, but it only matters when someone with one of these says it," he answered, pointing with his pen at the wall. I turned my head and saw that it was a framed degree declaring that he was, indeed, a medical doctor. Wiseass.

I decided to tell him so, too. "Thanks, Dr. Wiseass. We all had as many opportunities as you did to move up in the world and get an education."

"Oh, you'll be fine. You said so yourself. Move along, now," he answered, ignoring my rudeness, which prompting me to hop off the examination table. The officer was waiting for me right outside the door, and escorted me to the waiting room.

"John!" said a bright voice above the hubbub of the crowd. Kitty jumped up out of one of the chairs, and headed towards me. "You're okay!"

"Hey, I'm indestructible, Kitty-cat. Didn't you figure?" I told her casually as I gave her a light one-armed hug. I would've made it a real hug, but Storm was standing right behind her. She looked totally frazzled. Her normally immaculate white hair needed to be combed, and it wasn't look as sleek as it usually did.

"I'm glad you're okay, John," she said with a tired smile. "We have a car waiting for you out front." I nodded. "The other two mutants you were with will be coming with us, too. Actually, one of them has family – they were contacted already – and they were going to meet us at the hospital but they're not so close to here. They'll come to the school in the morning."

I registered what she was saying, but my mind was swimming with questions then. Didn't Amelia say that the X-Men had seen what a wreck the mansion was? What about Rogue, then? Shouldn't they have been all shook up over that? Why did they look so happy to see me when they should've been upset about her?

Those questions were replaced by even bigger ones when Logan pulled up to the curb in a shiny, black SUV, and the tinted passenger's side window rolled down with a smooth hum. "Hey, sugah."

I had no words to respond to that, but that was okay, because my facial expression said _Holy shit_ for me. Frozen to the spot, I made no move to get into the car, so Storm opened the back for me. She and Kitty climbed in, and I finally made my feet move and got in after them. There were three rows of seats in the huge car, and Julian and Meg were seated in the middle. We had to squeeze past them to get into the back.

Julian stuck out his hand as I sat down. We made some half-hearted introductions while Logan took us out of the parking lot and back to the mansion. Before I could ask, Rogue turned around in her seat to face me. "Remember that guy I took out with my powers? Which are all the way back, by the way, as you know. He was a healing mutant. And –"

I cut her off there. "He _what_? But wasn't he part of the group that was attacking the mansion?"

"Yeah. It's a long story, actually. I'll tell you as soon as we get back. But yeah, that's what he was. And I stole his powers when I touched him – you were still there, then, you remember? – and then I got shot, and when I woke up, you were gone, but I was all healed. Logan says it was lucky the bullet wasn't still in me when it happened." Logan grunted at the mention of his name.

"I wouldn't have gotten out of there alive though, if you hadn't given me your powers. That's how I knocked out the rest of the attackers," Rogue continued. She looked at me seriously over the tops of the heads of our middle seat passengers. "Thank you, John."

"Oh. Yeah. Damn… Well, I'm glad you're okay. I really thought you were gone, Rogue. That was some scary shit."

She nodded, and then turned back around in her seat to face the front. I took this moment to look out my own window. We were in a pretty nice suburb area, and there were chain stores and restaurants I hadn't seen in _months._ We passed a McDonald's and it made my mouth water. Hey, fast food's terrible for you, but if you haven't had it in a long time, it tastes _good._

"Logan, Storm. You guys mind getting me a hamburger or some tacos or something before I have to go back? Starbucks, even? Or, I don't know, just anything? Restaurant stuff, or fast food stuff! Please?"

Kitty laughed, and patted my knee. Julian and Meg probably thought I was just hungry after our ordeal, but no explanation was necessary for the rest of the car. "Sure," Storm said gently. Logan said nothing, but in a few minutes he pulled into a drive-thru.

I weaseled them into getting me a bunch of tacos and a latte from Starbucks, but in the end, everyone in the car had to eat something. It wasn't long before each of us was loaded with paper bags. I would wait until we got back to eat, so I set my food on the floor and my latte in the cupholder, and leaned back into the soft upholstery. Kitty looked up at me and smiled. Soon we would be back at the school, which was home to everybody else and prison to me. I wanted to keep watching the stores and houses whiz by the car window just a little while longer.

"Hey, Logan," I said softly.

"Hmm," he growled. It was a response, I guess.

"Can you drive a little slower?"

After a moment's pause, he looked at me through the rearview mirror and said, "Yeah. Sure, kiddo." It was the second time someone had called me that tonight. It was also his way of saying he was sorry about the way he'd joined in on the accusations the staff made against me about Hank McCoy. I smiled to myself, because I knew I'd forgive him as soon as I bit into my food later, which he'd paid for.

I stood in front of the main gates of the school, and surveyed the damage. Actually, it didn't look too bad. I looked to Storm for an assessment, because she had just gotten off her cell phone with Scott. She said, "They aren't back yet, but he sent someone to check out the safety. We have damage to some of the walls, and some of the classrooms and dorm rooms are unusable, but we can stay in. Some of us will have to share rooms, I guess." She heaved a sigh, and I idly wondered how many times that damn building had to be rebuilt.

"So, I guess you guys are staying the night?" I said to Julian, who was annoyingly taller than me, now that we were both standing outside.

Julian completely overlooked me and stared straight at Rogue. "If they all look like _you_ in there, I'm staying for a long time," he said to her with what I could only call a leer.

Wow. I wasn't used to being ignored when I spoke directly to someone. People usually at least called me "traitor" before walking away. What a grade-A asshole. I wish I'd known this before, so I could've thrown my own share of pens at him.

"Excuse me?" I said to him incredulously.

"Oh, are you with her?" Julian said, as though he couldn't care less.

I held back a smile. "Yeah. Back off." I said it because I just wanted to see if I was right: a jerk like him saw that I was smaller than he was and would keep hitting on Rogue even with me right there.

Julian grinned at me, and smoothed his jet-black hair. His smile, which contained about a million shiny, straight white teeth, was as genuine as a Xeroxed signature. "We'll make her like me better," he assured me.

Score. I love being right about douchebags. Rogue herself seemed to take this in stride. She was standing on the front steps, arms akimbo, and shaking her head at us. It made the white in her hair stand out.

I was tired and pissed off at this jerk. I had no more witticisms to throw around, and I just wanted to go to my (hopefully undestroyed) room and eat my fast food tacos. I searched my brain desperately for something biting and harsh to say to him as he and the rest of our party trudged up the stairs and through the heavy double doors.

"Hey, jackass, she threw pens at your head!" I finally shouted at him, extending an arm to indicate Meg.

At least I made Kitty laugh again.


	21. Chapter 21

**Title: You've Got To Go There To Come Back**

**Author:** "sleepall_day" at Livejournal**  
Rating:** Fairly tame but around PG-13.**  
Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.**  
Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Author's Note: **Wow this story needs to be finished already. Super short chapter to get me back to speed.

**Chapter 21: "Guess it's sheer luck we got him."**

No one got much sleep that night. Exhausted, all I wanted to do when I walked up the front steps of the mansion was crawl into my room, eat my food, and collapse into bed. But nope. There was stuff to be gossiped about and people to be fussed over. Much to my annoyance, I turned out to be one of those people.

"John!" exclaimed about half a dozen people as I stepped into the common room. Some of them got up and crowded around me as I plodded over to the couches. Everyone was talking at once, and I let myself literally fall onto the couch. Someone had started a fire in the fireplace, and if it weren't so loud in there, it would have been so cozy. I tore into my bag of tacos.

In between bites I managed to give half-hearted answers here and there, whenever people asked me how I was doing or about the compound I was being held in. I looked around. A lot of the kids who had been slowly moving up into the ranks of the X-Men were there – Bobby was holding Rogue gingerly around the waist making sure to only touch clothing, Peter was sitting in front of the fire, and Kitty was perched on the arm of the couch. Suddenly I remembered their original mission, and sat up. "Where's Hank?"

Everyone started talking at once, and it was hard to pick apart all the jabbering but I think the basic gist of it was that he was recovered. Damn. Way too much excitement in one night, I decided. I was just about ready to head to bed when I spied Rogue from the corner of my eye and decided, _What the hell_. So what if I would be shattering my aloof, don't-give-a-shit-about-you-guys persona? I was way too curious.

"So, that other mutant… what's the story?" I asked casually.

"His name is Josh Foley, and he's in the hospital wing right now. Alive, but knocked out cold when I took his powers. But I have his memories," Rogue answered. She sighed, and for the first time tonight looked totally beat. "That's why they haven't got him locked up or anything like that. He's not exactly innocent, but, I guess more like – wrong place, wrong time, you know?"

"No," I grumbled impatiently. "Explain."

"This kid Josh, he joined up with the Friends of Humanity to impress a girl. And cause he thought it was the cool thing to do. He's not really much of a hater down to the core or anything like that. But he found out he was a healing mutant, and another member of the group found out, threatened his life if he didn't participate in the mansion attack. So that's why he was there. He was hoping to slip out of the group eventually. Guess it's sheer luck we got him."

"Whoa, whoa. Threatened his _life_? A healer? Couldn't he have just… you know. Right?" I asked, my mouth full of tacos.

"Swallow, then talk, John. And yeah, he would've been fine, eventually, but I suppose the thought of a knife to the eyeball could still scare a person. I mean, he's still a kid, you know."

"_We're_ still kids," I mumbled. "We have a lot of shit to deal with, too."

Then Bobby cut in, his tone a little less sharp that I would've expected when talking to me. "Well, we were pretty lucky. Rogue would've died without him."

"And you," she added quietly.

"Oh – forget it," I said, embarrassed and unaccustomed to praise. And not quite liking the possibility of becoming a big old softy who saves X-Men. John, code name Pyro, who saves his own skin – _that_ I could deal with. "I'm going to go sleep. You two cuddle and try to not to kill the Iceman in the process." I stormed up the stairs, tossing the empty paper bag into the trash, and then called out behind me as an afterthought, "Not that I _care_ or anything! But just, there'd be a huge puddle of water left behind and the way things are going, _I'd_ be the one who'd have to mop it up!"


	22. Chapter 22

**Title: You've Got To Go There To Come Back**

**Author:** "sleepall_day" at Livejournal  
**Rating:** Fairly tame but around PG-13.**  
Timeline:** Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.**  
Summary:** After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own X-Men or any characters used in this fanfiction. This story is just for fun, and any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

**Author's****Note: **I find writer's block to be incredible. If you were waiting for updates, I apologize. I'm not much of a writer's block combatant.

* * *

**Chapter 22: "You guys aren't starting to trust me, are you?"**

I was knocked out cold for the night. That was way, way more excitement than I was used to. I woke up well into the afternoon and, with a smile, regarded those tacos as the highlight of last night. Except for the late-night excursion in New York City with Kitty, that fast food was the only taste of the outside world I'd had since I started house arrest.

Not bothering to change out of sweatpants, I was making my way down to the kitchen for lunch – I slept in too late for breakfast – when I was stopped by Rogue.

"You oughta get to the infirmary when you get a chance," she said to me. There was even a smile on her face as she spoke to me. A genuine one. I scowled just a little bit, but nodded at her and decided to see what that was all about.

I knocked on the door of the med bay, and without bothering to wait for an answer, poked my head inside. "What's the story, people?" I asked.

There was only one occupied bed. Sitting in it was the same "terrorist" that Rogue had swiped the mutant powers of during the invasion, except he now looked like someone had spray-painted him gold. He literally shone. I could see Storm's reflection in his cheeks. His blonde hair and blue eyes looked normal, but nothing else about him was, because his skin had a metallic gold sheen to it.

So I _laughed_. It was the only reasonable reaction for me to have. I laughed heartily and with youthful abandon. I mean, some kid's mutant powers kick in, and he turns into the chick from _Goldfinger_. That's _funny_ to me!

Unfortunately, no one else was laughing. They were glaring at me from around the kid's bed. I finally shut up, cleared my throat and pounded my chest as the ultimate gesture of awkwardness. Storm gave me a "you'll get it for this later" glare and said out loud, "This is Josh Foley. We've registered him as an Xavier's student and he'll be with us from today on." Turning towards Josh, she gestured towards me and told him, "This is John Allerdyce. He'll also be working with you in the program."

I groaned audibly and crossed my arms as I leaned against the doorjamb. Right. _That_ program. Josh looked to be the perfect candidate, along with Charlie, for little experimental guinea pig test subjects in that "Charles Xavier dreamed of peaceful coexistence!" rehab program I'd so far avoided. And by laughing at this kid's golden skin I'd probably knocked myself way behind schedule in terms of rehabbing this poor kid. I rolled my eyes. Way to shoot myself in the foot. But still! He looked so idiotic! I couldn't help it.

I stepped away from the doorway and stuck out a hand for him to shake. What the hell, right? I wasn't happy about the program, but I'd already told myself I was going to do what it takes to get the parole. "Hey, no hard feelings, dude. I just… you know," I stammered, realizing there was absolutely no excuse for the way I'd cracked up at him. So I just told him, "Sorry. I'm just a little crazy, that's all."

Josh snorted, but he took my hand and shook it anyway, and said with a wry grin, "It's fine, man. I kind of _like_ it." That took me a little by surprise, but I rolled with it.

I shrugged at him. "So. Healer, huh? So, what's up with all the…?" I let my voice trail off as I indicated all the tubes hooked up to the kid.

"Just taking down some information," Hank spoke up. "Joshua's physiology is truly stunning. I could spend days – weeks! – just examining the cell structures alone. I've taken a sample of some of his epithelia and plated it, and simply can't wait to start running some tests. Incredible! The tissue sample was taken in a noninvasive technique, but I could literally just – take one of Logan's claws and scoop out a chunk of skin and Josh would heal it right back!" Josh looked a little horrified at this statement. Hank continued, "I've just got so many tests in mind that I want to get started on. In fact…"

I laughed and cut off Hank with a wave of my hand. "Were you even half as excited as this when you were a kid on Christmas morning?" I laughed again as I looked at Hank's expression, and added, "It's good to see you so worked up, though, Dr. McCoy. In fact, good to see you at all." I realized this was the first time I'd seen the Beast since his capture and recovery.

He gave me a sincere-looking smile and nod, and patted me on the shoulder graciously. "It's good to _be_ back. I'm grateful to you for your part in this, young man. Ah, I do apologize. I suppose that should have been my first words to you, but as you could tell, I was rather excited about our newest mutant…"

"Yeah, why _is_ that, by the way? What is the big idea?" I said, ignoring his praise momentarily. "You've got Wolverine, don't you? Or is it that he just snarls at you whenever you suggest the idea of harvesting tissue samples from him?"

Hank chuckled, which, for him, was a deep rumble coming all the way from his big belly. He sounded like a grizzly bear. "Because, young man, Josh can also heal others. Just think of the implications for stem cell research!"

That _was_ interesting. I looked at Josh with a renewed interest and gave a low whistle.

"In fact, that's why I'm feeling so spry today," Hank added jovially. Good point. He did look pretty beat up in that footage earlier.

"See you around, then," I said, not wishing to stick around any more than I needed to. "And, well, you're welcome, I guess," I mumbled to Hank. I left Josh and the staff there in the infirmary to deal with the logistics of his being here, and enjoyed the rest of my quiet day. Things were winding down, classes were out for summer, and people were finally starting to feel relaxed. I almost forgot that air of tension surrounding the recent attacks and threats – at least, until I read a newspaper or used my ancient computer to check up on the news.

The old meeting hall was finally cleaned up and reconstructed. When it was ready for business, I made my one solid contribution to it. I stepped back from the wall and held out my arms proudly. "Nice, huh? Take a look!"

"You are so not getting parole," Warren replied dryly. He shook his head at the sign I posted directly above the trashcan. It read _SUGGESTION__ BOX._ I snorted.

Work was tedious. I hated every minute of it, but I think I surprised myself when I had to admit, I didn't exactly hate Charlie and Josh. They seemed like okay kids. I mean, they _were_ just kids. It's hard to hate kids when they're not the obnoxious kind who think the world revolves around them. I quickly learned that it wasn't that long ago that Josh _had_ been one of those kids, but a few short weeks with the Friends of Humanity, plus your own mutation suddenly manifesting, will change a person. I found that I could waste a lot of time in the first few counseling sessions by taking Amelia Voght's tactic. I cackled slightly as I let myself feel like I was being sneaky. "Tell me about your family. What did you do to pass the time? What were your friends like? What'd you do when you hung out with them? What kind of subjects did you like best in school?" All Amelia questions. She inspired me to realize I could ask all these "background information" questions before getting to the tougher stuff. It's what my own counseling sessions had been like, too.

Still, I never got the feeling that Amelia was just "wasting time" with me, because she was attentive and _did_ give me the feeling that she cared. If not about me, then about working for the school. I, on the other hand, managed to get away with asking these empty, nothing questions to the two boys for the first couple of days. Our sessions were kept for posterity on a tape recorder, so I didn't even have to pretend to take notes on a pad of paper while doodling pictures of dinosaurs or whatever.

Charlie was the quieter, more thoughtful one. He took his time with his answers and always spoke deliberately. I couldn't tell if it that was just the way he was, or if his abuse at the hands of the anti-mutant group had damaged him. We also talked a lot about his powers. It was an easy source of conversation. Mine were pretty straightforward, but Charlie's powers seemed to be much more finicky.

"It seems to work more for places than actual people," he once explained. "Like when I switched with Logan. I wanted to go to the school, so I went to the school, and my power randomly picked a person who was in or near it. Then, once I make the switch, my power is able to find the exact person again to switch with and put us both back in our original places. But I can't really seem to _locate_ people. I can't switch again with Logan without knowing where he is."

I nodded, interested. It always helps to learn when someone else's powers have some kind of limitation. Okay, so I was a little selfish about that.

"If it's a place I've already been to, I definitely can go there again – provided someone is there or nearby. If it's somewhere I've never been before… well, then I can go there if I have a very good picture of the place. Sometimes, but not always. The more detailed the photo, the better."

Josh had a far more frightening power. Not only could he heal himself and others, his power seemed to allow him intimate knowledge of any biological entity simply through touch. (Hank's words, not mine.) When he patted the back of my hand, he said, "You know, if you think it'd improve the quality of your life, I could fix it so you're not allergic to shellfish anymore." It disturbed me that someone could know me on the cellular level.

I raised an eyebrow, but told him, "You could try, but if I eat some oysters and have to be rushed to the ER, _you__'__re_ explaining it to the police."

This made Josh crack up. "I can regrow limbs, dude. You think I can't handle a little anaphylaxis?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, but derived from context that he meant "allergic reaction."

Josh was also more extroverted than either Charlie or I was. He was one of _those_. You know. The high school quarterback type. After making it through a pretty traumatic experience – having his life threatened, worrying the very people who threatened him would find out he was one of the mutants they so hated, getting himself worked up in basically a terrorist invasion – well, he seemed like a pretty normal guy. He bounced back quickly. Some of that "Yeah, I'm awesome, I was the star of the basketball team" personality trickled back as he recovered. He was always joking around and had an easy time talking to anybody. After one of our sessions was over, he slapped me high-five and said, "All right, man, next time," and on his way out, gave another high-five to Peter. "See ya, Shirtless Wonder!"

Really? Since when were Josh and Peter on a nickname basis? I glared and wondered if I were slightly jealous of how fast he was fitting in already. In fact, Josh had already become fast friends with Time For Dinner. It turned out that the baseball games she was always watching were Yankees games, and Josh was a big fan. In all my time here, I'd never really bothered to ever talk to her, and Josh was already high-fiving her after a Yankees run or blabbering with her about Derek Jeter this or Mariano Rivera that.

One afternoon, when I was in the common room lazily jotting down some thoughts in my notebook during one such Yankees game, Cyclops came looking for me. He was all businesslike and brusque, but it was hard to tell if that was because that's just the way he was, or if there actually _was_ something going on. He told me I was needed in the medical bay, along with Josh Foley, who was mildly annoyed to have his game interrupted.

When I got to the med bay, there was already a whole party of X-Men assembled, plus Amelia. "What?" I asked.

"We've had a few days to discuss the last mission, and we're ready to talk about it. I'll get right to the point. During the raid on the Friends of Humanity, we destroyed their stocks of the Legacy Virus."

I shrugged, and then offered, "Hooray?"

"Well... we recovered one stock of the Legacy Virus. Then, once we had it in our possession, we destroyed the others," Cyclops continued.

"Holy shit!" I blurted out. "You're going to smallpox that thing!"

"Mr. Allerdyce, _smallpox_ is _not_ to be used as a verb!" Hank scolded me tersely.

"Well, neither is it to be used as biological warfare, but who's asking me?" I shouted.

"John, please, indoor voices. No one is going to – to smallpox _anything_," Storm said in her own indoor voice, ignoring Hank's lesson in grammar.

"What does it mean when you use it as a verb?" Josh piped up.

I let out a loud sigh of exasperation, and groaned at him. "God, Josh, did you go to school? It's not a verb. I just meant that they're keeping one lonely virus stock around for 'just in case' at the risk of somebody stealing it and using it against us, you idiot!"

Turning his attention away from me, Josh looked at the staff and whined, "Are you going to let my therapist talk to me like that and call me an idiot?"

"I'm not your therapist!" I said. "Just because I talked to you for half-hour sessions this week doesn't give me any kind of a board certification!"

By this point almost everyone was shouting, until Cyclops put his fingers between his teeth and let out a piercing whistle. "All right, _settle__down_," he said. Bobby looked at him with admiration. I wondered if he was going to start practicing his own whistles later today.

"John, apologize to Josh," Cyclops said in his usual "I mean business" tone.

"Sorry," I mumbled, because it was faster than arguing about it.

"And some of us here _do_ have board certification. I'm going to let one of them continue, and you are all going to listen," Cyclops went on.

Hank, who obviously was the doctor in question, cleared his throat and began. "We are well aware of the risks, and we are going to have the virus stock under the strictest security imaginable. We do have a high-level containment facility right here on our campus…"

I raised both my hands in surrender and muttered, "I don't even want to begin to imagine what the Professor thought he was going to need with one of those."

Hank continued as if I hadn't spoken, which was probably the smart thing to do. "We would, however, be well advised to move the stock to an even higher level of containment. Biosafety level four, specifically. That is where the greatest level of security and containment for a contagion of this nature can be found, so be assured that we are doing all we can to stay safe. To be exact, we are sending a team to transport the virus to the Centers for Disease Control, accompanied by one of their staff members. And _that_, dear friends, is why we are keeping the virus stock. Not 'just in case,' of the need to wield it as a threat as Mr. Allerdyce has implied, and thank heavens the Professor isn't around to hear the words 'biological warfare' being tossed around in this institution! We are sending the stock in order to see if a vaccine can be created."

Josh and I exchanged glances. "Oh," was all I could say.

"Sounds reasonable," Josh said, and I nodded.

"Well, we're glad you approve," Amelia said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. "We needed your final vote of confidence," she added in a stage whisper.

I shrugged. "Why are you making a vaccine if the rest of it's been destroyed?"

"Because, John! There's no way to tell for sure if what we destroyed really _is_ the rest of it! Don't be dumb," Amelia said.

I just stared helplessly at Cyclops. "Are you going to let my therapist talk to me like this?" I couldn't see his eyes, but I just _knew_ he was stifling laughter.

Someone mentioned that they shouldn't be late to the meeting with the CDC staff member. But of course, I couldn't go. Something dawned on me. "Hey, so… what are you guys telling all this to _me_ for?" I grinned at them. "You guys aren't starting to trust me, are you?"

"Of course not," Cyclops said, grinning right back. All right, so he was the only one I could've stood that comment from. "You're here because we want you to be aware of what's going on while we do some blood work."

I froze. "What?"

"We just want to take all precautions. While you were in the hands of the Friends of Humanity, it's possible that you were infected. It may have been accidental, or intentional," Hank said.

I remained frozen. Slowly, I said, "You're kidding." The staff all shook their heads.

"Look, I wouldn't be too worried," Cyclops assured me. "It's just a precaution. Like Hank said. And Josh is here because he can probably tell if something's awry, too. But we're just drawing the blood to make _sure_, okay?"

I nodded, and let Josh lay a hand on my shoulder. After just a few seconds, he shrugged, and casually said, "Nothing seems wrong to me. Except for a couple of cavities."

I let out a huge breath. I could live with a couple of cavities. Possibly even more, if it meant I didn't have the Legacy Virus. "You guys had me going for a minute. Why couldn't you just let him do his thing _first_ and _then_ tell me?"

A small smile appeared on Hank's face as he said, "Okay. We'll do it that way when we contact Meg and Julian." I heaved another sigh.

"All right, come on over to one of the examination rooms with me. I'm going to have one of my nurses draw blood, and then you are free to go. The test results will probably be back before we are," Hank said to me.

"Who's going?" I said, nosy as usual.

"Most of us are," answered Bobby.

"Me too," said Amelia. "You get to skip counseling, John!"

"Oh. Goody," I grumbled. Well, I _did_ want to skip a few sessions, but not if it meant that once again, everyone would be off and going places without me. People started talking amongst themselves, and about their meeting with this CDC person. They were going to fly out to the CDC with them that very evening. Amelia and Hank would be going as our two resident medical doctors, and the others as Xavier's representatives. Why couldn't the people here just stay put once in awhile? They were always going on missions or getting abducted or whatever. Okay, so, to be fair, I'd gotten abducted too. But still!

Everyone except the nurse who was going to poke me with a needle started packing up their stuff and walking out of the med bay. I asked them, "Hey, does the CDC have a gift shop or something?"

Kitty turned to look at me with a puzzled expression on her face. "I… don't know, but if that's some kind of joke, I don't really get it. I wouldn't exactly call it a tourist hot spot."

"Oh, nah. I just was hoping you guys would bring me back a souvenir," I said. I would've preferred Paris or Rome or something, but while stuck in this mansion, even Atlanta, Georgia seemed like a cool and exotic vacation.

Kitty laughed. "Sure, we'll bring you back something."

"Make sure to bring back a Haz-Mat suit for Rogue, too," I said to Bobby.

To my surprise, he just chuckled and rolled his eyes. "I will," he said as he left.

I followed the nurse to one of the examination rooms where she stuck me with a gigantic needle. I mean, it was basically a baguette. I winced and tried not to lose my manly points. Trying to act casual, I asked the nurse, "So, does this mean we're all gonna have to line up for vaccine shots in a week or so?"

She laughed. "Yeah, right. It takes months to manufacture a vaccine. It can even take up to six months to mass produce the ones for the seasonal flu, and that's a process people are pretty familiar with. Legacy Virus is… well, not exactly well studied."

"Months? Then what are we supposed to do if somebody just, I don't know, takes some hidden stockpile of it and unleashes it?" I couldn't tell if the lightheadedness was due to the blood being drawn out of my arm, or thoughts of a highly contagious virus being spread around the globe.

All the nurse could do was shrug, as she finished up the blood draw. "It's the best course of action we can follow right now. That's all." She affixed a SpongeBob Band-Aid to my arm and then patted it. "There. You're done."

Soon after, the mansion was quiet again. I made a big dinner to share with Josh and Time For Dinner, whose name I _finally_ learned to be Francine. We sat in front of the TV for a while and caught the tail end of the game. "Hey," I said, pointing an accusatory finger at the big screen. "That dude has the same name as one of the terrorists."

"Coincidence, man," Josh assured me through bites of his food, waving his hand. "No way could that FOH guy ever hope to be as cool as Swish."

I snorted. So not only was he on a nickname basis with the Shirtless Wonder, he also was with a Major League Baseball player. "Really? You get to call him Swish?"

Josh was unfazed, and grinned at me. "When you love a team, when you _really_ love a team, they become _your_ team. They're your boys! When they win, you say 'we won'! And same goes for losses. It's team loyalty, man. And, by the way… we won!"

I glanced at the TV. So we had. Or, well, _they_ had. I just shrugged. I was indifferent, but Josh was grinning and slapping high-fives with Francine. When their jubilant celebration died down a bit, he looked at me and said sincerely, "You don't get it because you've never loved a team. I can tell. You have to really, really love a team to get it."

I just kept working on my journal as I reminded myself to brush my teeth extra hard that night.


End file.
